Gathering Shadows
by Thymara
Summary: Many years ago in Middle Earth a group of individuals took it upon themselves to take a great and dangerous journey to help rid their world of evil. this group included four hobbits, two men, a dwarf, elf, wizard and a shapeshifter... Wait what? Meet Anra a shapeshifter and the 10th walker, follow her and the other members of the fellowship on their journey to destroy the One Ring
1. Interrupted Pranks and Strange Messages

Anra pushed her thick wavy hair out of her eyes and sent a quick glance to Isla and Eron, hoping that she looked as calm and collected as they did. Patia glared that the three of them, "What-Why-What on earth would possess you to do this?" the nurse-maid stuttered in disbelief. "I should tell your father," she said sternly to Anra.

Isla's eyes widened in fear, "Please don't, we're sorry, I swear, we'll even clean it all up! Won't we guys?" She turned, elbowing her partners in crime, they nodded mutely.

"You bet your behind you will!" Snapped Patia, then her eyes softened. "Don't worry; I won't tell your father Anra, the king has more important things to worry about right now." She shook her head as she walked away and called over her shoulder, "That better all be cleaned up by the time I get back here."

The three of them let out a collective sigh of relief, "That was close," said Eron, "I thought for sure she was going to tell your father."

"Yeah, too bad we didn't get to finish," Anra said feeling rather miffed that her former nurse had stopped them.

"Too bad? Too bad? Anra if we had finished we would have been in so much more trouble!"

"You two were fine with it earlier," Anra muttered.

"Yeah, well that was before Patia caught us, so if we're done bickering like little pups we have to clean this up before she comes back with a worse punishment in mind." Eron huffed, also clearly annoyed that they had been caught in the act.

"This is going to take forever," Isla sighed, the other two grunted in agreement as they looked at the mess they had so artfully set up. The whole room's floor had been covered by small cups full of water, with small paths set up in it like a maze so it was almost impossible to get through the room without running into many dead ends first.

"Let's get to work," Eron groaned.

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Anra crept towards her chambers later that night, praying to the Valar that her father wouldn't hear her. She had no such luck. "Anra, get over here!" called her father. She walked over towards her father, eyes fixed on her feet in guilt and subordinates. "So I ran into Auburn on my way back from the meeting and she had the most interesting story to tell me about how she saw three certain pups cleaning up what looked to be a failed prank. Would you happen to have any idea what she was talking about?" He questioned with an eyebrow raised.

Anra shook her head feigning innocence while mentally cursing at the pokey old she-wolf who just couldn't seem to keep herself from nosing into everyone else's' lives.

Reigh growled softly, "Anra, you are the princess, my only heir; you need to stop being so foolish and start taking your duties more seriously. Maybe it's my fault that you're acting out; maybe if your mother was still around you wouldn't have these problems." He ignored her flinch at the mention of the long dead queen. "I'm not going to be around forever, you need to be able to handle some of my duties, it is no secret that I'm not as strong as I use to be."

"I bet that it hurts admitting that, a big blow to your pride" Anra said with a soft smile at her father.

He let out a laugh, "You have no idea my dear."

"It's not your fault," she said quietly. "I'm sorry I've been so tough on you, I know that it's hard for you too." They were both quiet for a moment as they thought of Anra's mother.

The king cleared his throat and stood up from the chair he had been seated in, "You'd better be going to bed, I expect you to be out training by dawn tomorrow."

Anra gave an exaggerated groan.

"Good night my dear pup. Oh and Anra, if you must insist on doing stuff like this, please do complete it and don't get caught, that's just embarrassing," the king said with a wink.

She was pleased that her father was more upset about the fact that they failed to complete the prank rather than the fact that they did one. "Night Dad!" she called.

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The next day Anra was at training on time for once, she figured she'd better not try her father's temper this early in the day. The training was grueling as usual, for warm up they had to run several miles in human form, then sword fight. She found this pointless, when was she ever going to have to fight in human form? Then after that they were finally allowed to fight in their other form, wolves.

By the time they were finished she was severally out of breath and her normally pure white pelt was covered in dust and mud. She met up with Isla and Eron, all of them still in their wolf forms. The three of them moseyed around through the forest that they called home, though most called it Fangorn Forest. The only other major species they had to share it with was the Ents who had been asleep for many years, but even so they lived in different parts, so they never had to worry about bothering each other. Most of Nightstalkers had never even ever seen one before; in fact most hadn't ever seen any other species before (not including the forest animals of course or the nasty orcs that occasional trespassed on their territory).

Apparently many hundreds of years ago their kind, the Nightstalkers, had lived in the open in a real city and had been allies with the men and elves, but there was a dispute of some sort that caused a rifted to form between the Nightstalkers and other species. Though Anra had no idea what it had been about, nobody ever spoke of it. Now they lived out in the forest with no contact to the rest of Middle Earth.

Anra though, didn't really mind, she couldn't imagine having to live in a city full of walls and people, not having enough space to hunt and run free. But there was a part of her that wished things were different, a part of her that wanted to leave the forest and explore the world for herself, meet new folk and go new places. She did her best to try to keep this part of her under wraps though, she was the princess, no matter what she wanted or wished she had to stay here to guide her people, her family, her pack. Little did she know that soon this part of her would be satisfied.

The three friends trotted through the undergrowth noses in the air in hopes of catching the scent of some prey they could have for an afternoon meal. _"Maybe we should just head back to the kitchens, I don't think we're going to have much luck out here today."_ Isla thought to them. Anra sigh but then growled in agreement, but Eron woofed in disagreement, he wanted something fresh. Isla compromised, _"We can keep looking as we head back but I'm really hungry, I don't know about you two."_ They agreed to this and started heading back towards their pack's base camp where everyone lived.

Not long later the three pack mates where sitting in the kitchen eating some of the cook's spicy stew, when Patia came into the room looking for Anra. "Your father wants you to meet with him in his chambers Anra."

"Okay," she replied around a mouth full of stew, but she continued to eat.

Patia rolled her eyes at the girl, "Now Anra."

"Can't I finish-"

"He said immediately," she said effectively cutting the pup she had helped to raise off.

"Fine," the princess grumbled. "This better still be here when I get back," she said gesturing towards her lunch while looking at her two friends, with an especially hard look at Eron who was famous for eating anything and everything around him.

Eron held his hands up in defense, "I swear I won't touch it, that is as long as you're not too long," he finished with a toothy smile.

Anra opened her mouth with a retort, but was once again cut off by Patia, who yelled, "Now Anra!"

"Gotta go," Anra raced out of the room towards her father's chambers.

Anra knocked twice before she cautiously entered her father's space, not knowing what he needed to see her so badly about, she quickly racked her mind to see if she had done anything of late that would have upset him. She could come up with nothing. With this in mind she walked up to where her father sat at the table with her head held high in confident strides.

"Yes father?" Reigh turned and gazed at her for several moments in silence, as if trying to decide something. His unwavering gaze started to make her nervous, so she ducked her head and looked at the floor in submission.

"Anra don't do that, keep your chin up and don't break a stare until the other person does, you are an alpha, a future pack leader don't you forget it."

Upon hearing this Anra raised her chin proudly, then inquired, "What was it that you wanted father?"

"I have just received a message." Anra cocked her head to the side not sure what this had to do with her, unless it was one of the trainers complaining about her for some reason, or something. Recognizing her confusion the pack leader clarified, "It is from the elves."

Anra's green eyes widened in amazement, "What do they want? I thought we had no contact with them?"

"We didn't," he said grimly, "which means that this must be of extreme importance if they are including our kind."

"What is it about?"

"It is from Lord Elrond of Rivendell requesting a representative from our pack to come to a meeting in three weeks' time."

"A meeting in Rivendell, about what?" Anra asked feeling rather perplexed.

"It does not say, only that it is imperative that we attend," he said with a grimace, as if the words left a bitter taste in his mouth.

"But father, you cannot go, you were just saying yesterday that you are no longer as strong as you use to be!"

"Are you calling me weak?" Reigh growled, his head held proudly, eyes glinting dangerously.

Anra quickly backpedaled, "No! Of course not father, never!" Stupid alphas and their pride, "I'm just saying that you are at the respectable age of 125, and you shouldn't have to partake in such a journey for nothing more than a mere meeting, that's all father, that's all."

"Oh, so now your calling me old," but there was a smile in his voice and laughter in his eyes.

Anra relaxed upon sensing his change in mood, "What, me call you old? Psst never!" she joked playfully. Then she sobered and said, "So what are you going to do about the summoning?"

Her father's smile slipped from his face and he replied, "Well, I have to send somebody or else we'll look weak, and it has to be a person of in a higher position…"

"You can't send Galorin, you'll need your beta here in case there are any orc attacks," Anra supplied.

"I know, and I can't send your mother's old beta because she just had a new litter of pups," Reigh sighed, pinching the bridge of his noise.

Anra chewed her lip nervously, 'It's now or never' she thought. "I can go," she practically whispered.

The old king said nothing, but she knew he had heard her, even in his declining age he still had the amazing hearing of a wolf. When he still hadn't replied several moments later she repeated it but this time in a strong clear voice. She was proud that her voice didn't shake when she said this even though just thinking about it scared her. Anra swallowed and forced the fear down though, so her father would not be able to smell it.

He gazed at her once more like he had when she had first came in, but this time Anra did not lower her head or eyes in submission. She held her head high in pride and kept her eyes staring straight forward fixed on a point just beyond her father's shoulder. She heard her father sigh, "You look so much like your mother right now," her eyes widened in surprise, they rarely spoke of her. "You have her hair and face, but more importantly you have her spirit, her bravery, her kindness. I call you a pup, because that is what you are to me, you are my pup, my only daughter, my sweet little princess, but look at you, you are no longer a pup; you are a she-wolf, a woman, an alpha," he took a deep breath before continuing. "As much as I wish it weren't so, you are right, you should be the one to go, you are ready."


	2. Leaving theFamiliar andFirst Impressions

Once her father had agreed that she could go, the two of them panned out the details. She would be leaving in two days' time with two guards accompanying her. She would take only a small bag with her that would contain some clothes, some herbs, a small ration of food, and a water skin, she would hunt for the majority of her food.

She spent the rest of the day in her father's study with him and her two guards, Sut and Jag, poring over maps and deciding which they'd routes to take to get to the elven city. Then also spoke about what they should say to others once they were there.

Anra became so wrapped up in the preparations that she didn't even think to tell Isla and Eron what was going on. No, she didn't remember them until later that night when she dropped down on her bed in exhaustion. 'Some friend I am,' Anra thought darkly, 'I completely forgot about them!' Shaking her head she climb out of her bed and walked over to her mirror. She gazed into it and thought about what her father had said early about her being like her mother.

She didn't really remember her that well; in fact all she remembered about her was her scent. All wolves remember their mother's scent; it is the first thing they experience as a pup. According to her father and everyone who had known her, she was a dead ringer of her mother, she had the same mid length thick, red/brown hair full of wild curls, the same small build, fair skin, and face full of freckles. She even had the same pure white fur when she was shifted. The only thing that was different were her strikingly vivid dark green eyes, they were her father's eyes.

Her father had also said she had her mother's spirit, she wondered if her mother would have forgotten her friends like she had. Anra didn't understand how she could have forgotten them, they were her best friends! The three of them had been inseparable since they were tiny pups.

She ran her hand through her crazy curls and resolved to talk to them first thing in the morning; she would get nothing else done tonight. She left her mirror and crawled back into her bed, ready to fall into the arms of sleep.

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The next day came much too soon for Anra's liking, despite her decision to talk with her friends first thing in the morning she found herself dragging her feet. The three of them had never been away from each other for more than one or two days before and she had no idea how they'd react to her leaving for probably over a month, possibly two even.

So instead she found herself standing in front of her wardrobe taking her sweet old time deciding what pair of trousers she wanted to wear that day. All Nightstalkers wore pants and tunics, no matter if they were male or female. It just made more sense to them, dresses were extremely inconvenient and most of the time quite uncomfortable. Now that didn't mean the females in their pack never wore dresses, if there was some sort of formal or political event happening they may wear a dress, but rarely for everyday life.

When she couldn't stall any longer she slowly made her way towards the kitchen where they would be eating breakfast since there was no training today. Anra pulled her hair into a ponytail as she walked into the room and plopped down in her usual seat next to Isla and across from Eron.

"Hey, what happened to you yesterday?" Isla asked as soon as Anra sat down. "Were you in trouble?"

"Yeah," said Eron, "you put that perfectly good stew to waste, 'cause you told me I couldn't eat it since you were supposed to come back."

The eggs that Anra had been eating seemed to get stuck in her throat as she tried to swallow, forcing her to take a big gulp of juice before she could reply. "My father had received a message that he had needed to discuss with me." She glanced over to see her friends staring at her waiting for her to further elaborate. Anra looked around the kitchen that was slowly being filled with more of their pack mates looking for breakfast. She sighed, "I'll tell you guys more about it, but not here. Meet me at the old willow when you are done eating." With that Anra got up, her appetite gone, and left her two friends sitting at the table wondering what on earth was going on.

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Not too long later, two wolves, one black and one silver, pushed their way through the forest's undergrowth towards a big old willow tree. As they walked into the small clearing that surrounded the grand tree they gently touched noses with the white she-wolf that was already there waiting for them.

The three of them shifted so that there were three young adults standing there instead. "Okay Anra," the girl who had been the silver wolf started, "what's going on, what's with all the secrecy?"

The other girl fiddled with a dagger that hung from her belt as she decided how to tell them she was leaving. "Come on Anra, spit it out already!" Eron snap, her hesitation making him nervous.

"Okay, so you know that message I was telling you about earlier?" they nodded. "Well it was from the elves." Her friends' eyes popped in disbelief, so she hurried on before they could cut in. "It was a request for a representative from our pack to go to Rivendell for a secret meeting of some sort. And before you ask, no I don't know what the meeting is about."

"The elves," Isla whisper, her eyes shining in amazement, "I wonder what they want, we haven't acknowledged each other's existence in hundreds of years?"

Eron seemed more hung up on the other part of what she had said, the part she hoped they wouldn't have really thought about. "Who's going?"

Anra swallowed, "I am."

"WHAT?" they both cried in unison.

Anra rushed into explaining why it had to be her who went because the other ones who would be in the position to go were unable. Then she reassured them that she'd have two guards with her at all times and that she'd only be gone for a few weeks. Isla looked sad, but she was nodding in understanding, whereas Eron just looked angry.

"I guess I get why you have to go, but I wish you didn't." Anra nodded her thanks to her friend for understanding then she turned to Eron.

He was glowering at the forest floor with a fierce scowl etched upon his face. "Eron?" she said cautiously. But before she could say anything else he had shifted and was galloping away into the surrounding wooded area, his black tail streaming out behind him.

Anra looked at her feet sadly, as she felt an arm go around her. "He'll come around, don't worry just give him some time. When do you leave?"

"Tomorrow at sunrise," she whispered.

"Okay, we should probably head back then so you can finish getting ready. And don't worry, I'll talk to that bone head and make him see reason."

"Thanks Isla," Anra said leaning her head down on the other girl's shoulder as they walked back towards the camp.

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They girls had spent the rest of the day together, getting Anra ready for her journey. The next day had once more come way too early for her liking. She dressed in a simple white tunic with trousers, a sturdy belt to hang her two daggers from, brown leather boats, and long hooded grey cloak. She carefully braided her hair, shouldered her pack and head out of her chambers down to the main clearing where she would meet the others.

Her father was there as was his beta, her two guards that were accompanying her and Isla, but there was no sign of Eron. She tried not to feel hurt by this, but it was hard, he was one of her best friend. Her father said they would be coming with them up to their border then they were on their own. That was good she thought, she wasn't ready to say good bye yet, even if it was just temporary. Now that she was actually leaving her nerves had come back in tenfold, making her nauseous.

They ate a quick breakfast, and then they shifted and were off running through their territory side by side, as if they were just a regular patrol. Once they reached the boarder her father gave them some last minute instructions, then pulled her into a hasty hug, and whispered in her ear, "Good luck honey, you'll do great, takem' by storm."

Once he released her she turned to Isla, after a swift glance around in hopes of seeing a familiar black pelt. "I'm sorry I couldn't get him to come, the idiot wouldn't see reason."

"Hey it's okay, I'm sure you did you best," Anra replied with a tight smile. "This is it."

"For now, this is it, for now," Isla corrected.

"Yes, for now," she amended.

"I'll miss you, and so will he, even if he is too stubborn to admit it."

"I will miss you guys too."

"Anra," called Jag, "we've got to get going."

"Okay," she called back.

Isla pulled her into a tight hug and gave her a kiss on the cheek, "Take care of yourself out there Anra, you can never be too careful."

"I know, you be careful too," she said returning the hug.

"Just make sure you come back to us in one piece."

"I will, see you in a few weeks," she said as she turned and started walking away with the guards.

"Anra, remember what I said," called her father, "keep your head up and be proud, you are an alpha, don't you forget it!"

She nodded as she shifted and started to run after Jag and Sut who were already leaving. She through one last glance over her shoulder and saw the disappearing pelts of her pack mates vanishing back into the forest.

'You'll be fine,' she thought to herself, 'you'll be back in a few weeks.' If only she knew how wrong she truly was.

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Anra slowed to a walk as the three shape shifters approached the border into elven territory. They had been traveling for a little over two weeks, only stopping for a few hours every day to sleep and hunt; they did the majority of their running under the cover of night.

Anra shifted then gestured for the other two to do the same. She stretched out her limbs and straightened her clothes, they hadn't been in their human form since the day they left their territory behind, and it felt strange to be on two legs instead of four all the sudden.

As they marched on, the elves' pungent odor filled their senses. Anra shook her head trying to clear it and made note to try not to breathe through her nose while she was there.

They had been walking for about an hour when they were suddenly encircled by about six tall dark haired elves who had their bows out, arrows notched, pointing at them. One elf stepped out of rank towards them and said in a flat voice, "Who are you and what is your business in Rivendell?"

Anra raised her chin and stated, "I am Lady Anra, daughter of Reigh, of the Nightstalkers. We are here in response to Lord Elrond's message." She disliked referring to herself as Lady Anra, it sounded so uptight and formal, but it was her proper title so she had to use it as long as she was there.

She must have said the right thing, because the lead elf gave a nod and the others lowered their bows. She felt Jag and Sut relax on either side of her, while she herself suppressed a deep sigh of relief. Other than a couple small skirmishes with some orcs back in the Fangorn, Anra had never actually fought in a real battle, and having all those bows pointing at her had been unnerving.

"Allow us to escort you to the city and to where you will be staying Princess Anra," requested the elf in the same flat tone her had used early.

She nodded, feeling like she didn't really have a choice anyways. 'Escorting us? Seems more like guarding us,' she thought as the elves remained surrounding them in a tight uniformed formation. 'I wonder if they were waiting for us, I guess even after all this time they still don't trust us.'

As they walked up into the city Anra couldn't help but gape at the beauty of it, with its elegant bridges, and giant water falls. Their escorts lead them down a hallway to three rooms that they indicated to them as their temporary chambers for the duration of their stay.

Anra excused herself from her guards and entered her room. She dropped her bag on the floor and collapsed on the bed, deciding to take a quick nap before she explored a bit.

As soon as she opened her eyes she knew she had overslept, the sun had set and the moon was high in the sky. 'I guess I need sleep more than I thought, at least I should be caught up on it now, hopefully.'

She pulled a brush through her tangled mass of curls, than put on a green cloak and slipped quietly out the door to explore. She walk silently down one hallway then up another, not really sure where she was going.

It wasn't long till she was lost and just wandering through a garden of some sort. She felt more comfortable out here than she had inside the buildings, to her it felt more like home outside surrounded by the plants, even if they were flowering ivy and herbs instead of the great big oak trees she was used to.

She strolled through the garden, enjoying the feel of the cool grass between her toes, when she heard something. It sounded like a sigh, a human sigh. 'Darn this elf stench, it keeps masking the smells of other things.' She peered around a small tree and saw a man leaning against a tree reading.

Anra couldn't help but stare a little; she hadn't seen that many humans before and certainly none this close up. Now that she was aware of him she could pick up his scent, it was a strong, musky, distinctly male odor, with a spicy undertone. He actually smelled quite nice.

She found this strange, she had always been told that humans, the males especially, smelled horrible and look just as bad. But this human, well he actually looked pretty nice too, he had longish black hair, tan skin, and the most beautiful grey eyes she had ever seen.

He looked so peaceful just sitting there reading, Anra leaned against the tree she was hiding behind not paying attention to where she placed her feet. That was her mistake, she was resetting one of her feet so she was more comfortable, but she failed to notice the twig she was about to set her foot on.

The twig snapped painfully loud in the silence of the garden. Anra dropped behind a bush as soon as it snapped, and prayed he hadn't seen her, 'Valar, this is so embarrassing. Oh, hey don't mind me I'm just standing here staring at you, just continue on what you're doing.' After having this horrifying thought she shifted and quietly ran back the way she came, following her own scent for direction.

When she got back to the hall where her chambers were, she saw Sut and Jag standing there waiting in their human forms, with scowls fixed on their faces. Anra shifted and prepared for the tongue lashing she was about to receive for wandering off in the middle of the night without having them with her.

"Where have you been?"

"Oh, you know, just wandering around, exploring," she replied airily with a wave of her hand.

"In the middle of the night?"

"Well yeah, that's the best time to do that, it's umm less crowded," even she could hear how thin that was.

"Is that so?"

"Yep."

Jag rolled his eyes, well Sut kept his scowl firm on his face. "How exactly are we supposed to protect you when we don't know where you are?" Anra shrugged at this. Jag sighed in exasperation, "Just don't do it again."

"Of course not," she said with a sweet smile, already thinking about how she could give them the slip tomorrow without them catching on till it's too late.

"Go to bed Princess, we'll have a long day tomorrow I'm sure," Anra winced at the title, but then complied to his wish.


	3. Important Meetings and Cloud Watching

**Disclaimer: I do NOT own Lord of the Rings in any shape, way or form**

**A/N: thank you to those of you who have review, followed or favorite so far, it means a lot to me! By the way this is my first fanfic ever so sorry if its not the best. -Thymara**

The next day Anra woke to the sound of bird song and the morning sunlight streaming down on her. She climbed out of bed and went to find a servant to ask them to draw a bath for her.

Once she had finished getting ready for the day she strolled out of her chambers with her two guards in tow in search of some breakfast. The three of them soon found the kitchen where they were served some fruit, porridge and honey cakes. Though they were disappointed by the lack of meat, it was still a pretty good breakfast.

They had finished eating when they heard the sound of approaching horses. A messenger elf came into the kitchen to tell them to come to one of the many stone patios because the meeting was going to start in a few minutes.

The shape shifters were some of the last to arrive to the council area. Anra took a seat that was a couple down from Lord Elrond and diagonal to a tall grey wizard and a small child like creator that had hairy feet. She believed he was what was called a hobbit. Instead of taking seats Jag and Sut stood stiffly on either side of her chair with imposing looks on their faces.

Anra looked around to see who else was present at the meeting. There were two different groups of elves; one group was the dark haired ones from Rivendell and the others were light hair, from where she believed would probably be Mirkwood. There was a group of short, bearded dwarves who were all seated together glaring suspiciously at the elves. 'It's good to know we're not the only ones here that don't get along well with them,' she mused. Then there was also a group of men present, they had what looked to be an oak tree encrusted onto their things, and they had proud looks on their faces. She was already finding it hard to like them. She also saw the man she had seen the previous night sitting in one of the chairs, she tried not to stare.

It looked like she was the only female present in the whole group.

Elrond then stood and the council commenced. He started with greeting everyone, then he launched into the well-known story of the Ring of Power and Sauron and the Great War. Anra founded herself only half listening to what he was saying; she had known the story since she was a young pup. It was one of the last things Nightstalkers and elves had worked together for, before the two races had started hating each other.

She tuned back in when the elf lord asked the Hobbit, Frodo, to bring forth the very same ring. Once he had sat back in his seat she saw Frodo visibly relax, but he was the only one. With the ring out in the open everyone else tensed, she could smell the sweet stench of fear fill the air.

A man, from Gondor she believed, stood and started babbling on about how he had a dream that she really couldn't care less about, but at the same time as he spoke he was slowly making his way over to the ring with his hand reached out as if to touch it. She felt a growl rise in her throat, but before she did anything two things happened. First, Lord Elrond jumped to his feet and yelled, "Boromir!" and the tall grey wizard stood up and started yelling in a strange language.

His words were loud and harsh, and as he spoke the skies grew cold and dark. Pain radiated through her head and she clamped her hands over her sensitive ears. A quick glance over her shoulder showed both of her guards doing the same.

When the old wizard stopped talking Elrond chided him angrily for using that language there, but Anra could barely hear them, her ears were still ringing. She only just started hearing again just in time to her the wizard say, "The ring itself is altogether evil."

The man, Boromir, though, would not be swayed. "It is a gift. A gift to the foes of Mordor," he started up again. "Why not use this ring? Long has my father, the Steward of Gondor, kept the forces of Mordor at bay." Anra found herself liking the pompous human less and less, could he not sense the evil coming from this ring? It reeked of death and destruction. "By the blood of our people, are your lands kept safe. Give Gondor the weapon of the enemy! Let us use it against him!" He finished looking around as if expecting applauses, maybe he did.

"You cannot wield it. None of us can." It was the man she had been watching the previous night who was now speaking. "The One Ring answers to Sauron alone. It has no other master." His voice was even, he did not speak down to the Boromir like she probably would have if it had been her responding.

"And what would a ranger know of this matter?" Boromir sneered at him with a mocking expression.

"This is no mere ranger." A blond elf that was sitting across from him said standing up. "He is Aragorn, son of Arathorn. You owe him your allegiance."

"Aragorn? This is Isildur's heir?" Boromir said, not bothering to hide his disbelief.

"And heir to the throne of Gondor." Anra found herself surprisingly unsurprised by the elf's words. Aragorn seemed to have a certain air about him, a quiet authority if you will, that seemed to demand respect, without demanding at all.

Aragorn didn't appear to like all the attention all the sudden on him, he said something quietly in elvish to the blond elf, who then sat back down.

Boromir now looked kind of peeved, clearly not liking the fact that the man who was supposed to be his king was there. "Gondor has no king," he spat before sitting once more.

'Well this is awkward,' Anra thought.

Thankfully the wizard broke the pregnant pause by saying, "Aragorn is right. We cannot use it."

"You have only one choice. The Ring must be destroyed." Elrond said in a deep authoritative voice, gazing evenly at everyone present.

"Well, what are we waiting for?" Bellowed a red bearded dwarf, he grabbed his ax and swung it down on the ring. Unfortunately this didn't do the trick; in fact it sent the dwarf flying backwards and shattered his ax instead.

Though Anra only half noticed this, she was too busy studying the hobbit's reaction. Poor Frodo flinched when the ax had struck the ring, as if he had been the one struck instead. She felt bad, clearly he had already started to form a bit of a bond with the magic ring and that worried her. She tried to remain impartial, but it was hard she wanted to help and protect the small hobbit. Anra had a suspicion that it was because he seemed to have a childlike innocence about him that reminded her of the young pups from her pack, though she knew this was wrong of her, he was probably just as old if not older than she was.

"The Ring cannot be destroyed, Gimli, son of Gloin, by any craft that we here possess. The Ring was made in the fires of Mount Doom, only there can it be unmade." Elrond spoke in a serious voice. "It must be taken deep into Mordor and cast back into the fiery chasm from whence it came. One of you," he added a small pause as if for dramatic effect, "must do this."

"One does not simply walk into Mordor." Boromir said rising to his feet again. "Its black gates are guarded by more than just orcs. There is evil there that does not sleep. And the Great Eye is ever watchful. It is a barren wasteland, riddled with fire and ash and dust. The very air you breathe is a poisonous fume. Not with ten thousand men could you do this. It is folly." Anra suppressed a shiver as he finished speaking. She was surprise everyone looked so calm, for the smell of fear had practically doubled when he had gotten to the part about the Great Eye.

"Have you heard nothing Lord Elrond has said? The Ring must be destroyed!" The blond elf shouted jumping to his feet.

"And I suppose you think you're the one to do it!" challenged the dwarf Gimli.

"And if we fail what then? What happens when Sauron takes back what is his?" Boromir retorted getting back into the argument.

"I will be dead before I see the Ring in the hands of an elf!" snarled Gimli as he sprang to his feet.

Although Anra knew this was a very serious subject she couldn't help but be a little amused as all the elves and dwarves jumped up and started arguing at once. She glanced around to see others reactions, Lord Elrond was rubbing his head as if he had a headache, the wizard had gotten up and was yelling at the men who had joined in the fight, poor Frodo just looked sick to his stomach while staring at the ring, and Aragorn had simply rolled his eyes at everyone else's antics.

Her eyes went back to the small hobbit's face and she realized his decision before he did. He looked at the ring for a moment longer before the glanced up and meeting her gaze; she gave him a small encouraging smile. He rose to his feet and said in a small voice, "I will take it!" but nobody else seemed to hear it over the loud arguing.

Anra leapt to her own feet and gave a sharp whistle that made everyone stop talking. Then Frodo said in a louder voice once again, "I will take it! I will take the ring to Mordor. Though I do not know the way," he added at the end in a smaller meeker voice.

"I will help you bare this burden, Frodo Baggins, as long as it is yours to bear," said the old grey wizard, walking over to him.

Anra swallowed nervously, and then said in a strong voice, "I too will help and protect you by any means possible till the end either of this quest, or my days." The last part of her oath scared her, but she meant what she said. She walked over and stood next to the hobbit, careful not to look at Jag and Sut, afraid of what their expressions would hold.

Aragorn joined next saying, "If by my life or death, I can protect you, I will. You have my sword." He stood behind Frodo, next to Anra.

The blond elf, whose name turned out to be Legolas, swore next, offering his bow. Then not to be out done by the elf, Gimli the dwarf pledged his ax.

'I wonder if I should have pledged a weapon of some sort, but what would I have said, my teeth? Naw, that'd just sound ridiculous.'

Next the man Boromir pledged in, which Anra wasn't too thrilled about, he just rubbed her the wrong way.

Then out of a bush, a slightly plumper hobbit came streaking out and declared with his arms folded tight against his chest, "Hey! Mister Frodo's not going anywhere without me!"

Lord Elrond's eyes widen in surprise, but then looked like he was trying to suppress an amused smile said, "No, indeed. It is hardly possible to separate you two, even when he is summoned to a secret council and you are not," with a pointed look at the end of his statement.

Not that the hobbits took any notice, because just then two more of them came running out from behind some pillars, the taller one saying, "Oi! We're coming too! You'll have to send us home tied up in a sack to stop us." 'How many of them were there?' she thought in exasperated amusement.

The smaller one was nodding his head in agreement, "Anyway," he said, "you need people of intelligence on this sort of... mission... quest... thing."

"Well that rules you out Pip." Teased the taller one.

"Ten companions. So be it." Elrond approved with a small nod. "You shall be the Fellowship of the Ring."

"Great! Where are we going?" questioned the small one in a completely serious tone.

"You're joking right?" Anra said with a laugh, which only increased when he looked up at her in confusion.

She left the other hobbits with the job explaining to him what their fellowships purpose was. The wizard approached her and said, "I was wondering if you'd be joining us on this quest, I am Gandalf, Gandalf the Grey."

"I am pleased to meet you, Gandalf; I am Anra, daughter of Reigh. What do you mean by you wondering if I'd be joining you?" she said suspiciously.

"I meant no offence my Lady," he responded smoothly, "just that nobody had heard from your kind in quite some time and I was uncertain where you would stand on this issue. I for one am glad you are coming; it has been too long since anyone has heard from the Nightstalkers. Though, it seems to me your guards aren't quite as happy with your decision as I," he finished with a twinkle in his eyes. Anra decided right then that she liked him.

Taking a deep breath she turned and looked over towards Jag and Sut. Sut looked horrified, whereas Jag just looked angry. Anra knew that they wouldn't yell at her there in front of everyone, so she wasn't too happy when everyone started filing out of the meeting area. Glancing around she quickly slid into a group of tall men that were leaving, so she wouldn't be seen leaving by her guards.

Once the meeting place was out of sight, Anra slipped away from the group she had been with and walked off in a random direction in hopes of finding somewhere peaceful to think about what she had just agreed to. This said place didn't take much time to find, the elvish city was full of them. After walking in it for a bit, she recognized it as the garden she had been in the night before.

She took a deep breath and settled herself down next to a small weeping willow. The air was heavily perfumed by the flowers and herbs surrounding her, she hoped it'd be enough to mask her scent if Jag or Sut came looking for her. She lay back on the flower bed and stared up at the bright sky for a while, letting her mind go blissfully blank.

But that moment ended too soon, as thoughts assaulted her mind. What had she been thinking? Or had she just not been thinking at all? Her father would be so mad; he hadn't authorized her going on this fellowship. He had only meant for her to come to Rivendell for this meeting, then to come straight home, no detours. And what about Isla and Eron? She had told them that she'd only be gone for a couple weeks; this was probably going to take at least several months, probably more. Eron was already angry with her for leaving in the first place, what if this pushed him over the edge and he didn't want to be friends any longer? 'You know what, screw them!' she thought angrily. 'This is what I want to do, so this is what I'm doing and they'll just have to live with it!' Then Anra shook her head not really knowing what to think. She pulled her hair out of its neat braid and ran her fingers through her wild red-brown curls in frustration. She closed her eyes sighing, and decided to try to just enjoy the sun for a bit.

A cool shadow fell across her, blocking her head and shoulders from the warmth of the sun. She gave a small growl of annoyance thinking it was just one of her guards coming to give her a piece of their mind. So she was surprised, and a little embarrassed when she opened her eyes and saw that it was not actually Jag or Sut, but Aragorn instead.

He raised an eyebrow in response to her growl, but said nothing. "Can I help you?" Anra said, trying to come across as cool and aloof, but failing miserably when her voice came out squeaky. She felt her cheeks turn a little pink after hearing that terrible noise that was her voice.

"I was wondering if I would find you here," Aragorn murmured, sitting down next to her on the flower bed.

"Well you found me," she stated lamely, not really sure what else to say, but wanting to break the silence.

"Indeed I did," he said with a touch of humor in his voice. "And in response to your first question, yes, yes you can help me."

"How so?" she asked, now a little curious.

"You can answer some questions, two to be exact."

"Okay, ask away," she challenged.

"One," he said, "why did you volunteer for this journey? It's not going to be easy."

"What, you think I can't handle it?" she asked, feeling rather offended.

"I never said that, but you don't really have that much experience though, do you?"

"So what better way to get some?" she snapped snarkily, annoyed that he didn't think she could do it.

"This quest isn't something to be taken lightly," he said, his voice full of warning.

She sighed and ran her fingers through her hair again, "I know, I'm not."

"Then answer the question."

"Because it is the right thing to do, because I want to."

He nodded, seemingly satisfied by her answer for the time being, "Okay, and two, why were you spying on me last night?" He was lightly smirking.

Anra sputtered, "I was not!" though even to hear ears it sound like a lie.

Aragorn laughed, "I saw you."

"I…You…I…" she stammered. "I didn't mean to spy, I just saw you, and I'd never seen a human up close before, so I guess I stared a little," she finally managed to squeeze out.

"So if that is it then why did you run?" he asked, still laughing.

"That's three questions," she huffed, trying to keep a straight face, but his laugh was so contagious that soon she was laughing too.

Once the two of them had calmed down a bit Aragorn joked, "You're the first Nightstalker I've ever seen period, am I staring?"

"Well, maybe you just don't like looking at me as much as I like looking at you." 'Oh my Valar, did I seriously just say that out loud?' Judging by Aragorn's amused expression, she did.

Anra felt her face grow incredibly hot with embarrassment. She learned at that moment that it was impossible to die of embarrassment, because if it were she would have.

Aragorn started to chuckle again upon seeing the look on her face, "I did not know it was possible for someone to become this red." She mentally cursed her fair skin for showing her blush. 'At least he's gentlemanly enough not to bring up my last comment,' she thought.

She blew some hair out of her face, before she gazed up at the sky again looking for shapes in the cloud. Anra heard him groan slightly as he reclined down next to her in the dirt, but her eyes did not stray from the puffy white clouds.

"Do you see anything up there?" he asked softly. She shrugged saying nothing. "Are you looking for anything in particular?" he tried again.

"No, not really," she admitted after a moment.

"Then what are you doing out here?"

"Dawdling, avoiding the inevitable." He gave her a look, hoping for her to expand on that, but when she didn't he made an assumption.

"This was not a planned turn of events?"

"You could say that," she said giving him a lopsided smile. "Let's just say that this expedition was only supposed to take a month or two, tops."

"And you have yet to talk with your guards," he finished for her.

"Yup." With that the two of them laid in silence for a bit, till Aragorn announced that he had to go somewhere. Anra felt strangely upset that he had to leave, even though they weren't even talking.

Then he suggested, "It's getting late, how about I walk you back to your chambers before I go?"

She perked up a little at this, but then she said, "But then I'd have to see Sut and Jag…"

Aragorn laughed as he got to his feet, brushing himself off. "You're going to have to sometime," he said, offering her a hand.

"Mmm, the keyword in that sentence is _sometime_," she answered, but she took his offered hand anyways, and got up. He shook his head smiling as he led the way towards where the Nightstalker was staying.

When they got to her hallway they immediately were greeted by the sight of two large agitated Nightstalkers waiting rigidly for them. Sut stepped forward and said, "We can take her from here, we'd like to thank you for accompanying her here Lord Aragorn."

"It was my pleasure to accompany the Lady Anra," he replied to them. Then he ducked his head and whispered to her in a low voice, "Good luck," with a ghost of laughter in his voice.

She couldn't stop herself from blushing a little when his breath tickled her ear, but then she said with a snort, "Thanks."

As he walked away she turned and faced her escorts, 'Let the show begin.'


	4. DaringPrejudice and SomeMidnight Advice

**Disclaimer: I do NOT own Lord of the Rings!**

**A/N: thank you for the kind reviews and for the Follows and Favorites, you guys make me smile every time I get one.**

**feel free to drop a review to tell me how I'm doing so far -Thymara**

* * *

After what had felt like hours of being of scolded like a young pup who had snuck into the kitchen and gobbled up all the dessert, they finally seemed to realize they weren't getting through to her, Sut said, "Since you clearly don't care for your own safety and wellbeing, think about the pack. How do you think this will affect them, having their princess, their future alpha, away for so long?" Anra ducked her head in shame, he was right; it wouldn't be good for her to be away from her pack this long. It just wasn't natural.

Jag joined in, "And what about Isla and Eron? They'll miss you terribly, you told them you'd only be gone for a bit, how do you think they'll react to this?" 'Oh, he did not just go there!' she thought, but he was right too, Eron was already mad at her for leaving in the first place.

"Have you even thought about your father? It's no secret that he's getting older, have you considered what this could do to his health?" Upon hearing this white hot guilt coursed through her. Of course she had thought of her father after she had said she'd go, but she never considered what it might do to him health wise, the worry couldn't be good for his heart.

But she had given her word to Frodo that she'd go and she'd protect him with her life if necessary, and she had meant it, she wasn't going to back out now. Her friends, her father, her pack they'd be fine without her for a while. But this, this quest, they needed all they could get, for if they failed it wouldn't matter if her friends or family needed her, 'cause they'd all be dead, 'cause Middle Earth would be destroyed.

She voiced this opinion to her guards and their response was Sut saying. "What about us?" Anra cocked her head to the side not quite understanding what he was getting at. "Your father would flay us alive, and then banish us if we let you go anywhere."

"He would not," Jag gave her a disbelieving look. "Just tell him that I forced you to let me go."

"No," Sut said firmly.

"Excuse me?" Anra said incredulously.

"I said no, you are not going. We will not allow it." Sut said his voice dangerously calm.

"I don't remember asking your permission," she snarled.

"You didn't need to because you are not going on this Fellowship," his voice was now positively oozing with authority.

Part of Anra wanted to whimper and turn belly up when she heard this tone, but she couldn't, wouldn't, so she squashed this part of herself like a little bug. Instead she pulled out her alpha instincts, power and put them to full use when she growled in her own deep authoritative tone, "I am going and there is nothing you can do about because you are leaving to go home tomorrow to bring this news to the pack."

She felt a little bit bad about ordering them to do something against their will, but there was another part of her that was deeply satisfied when she heard them whimper and lower their heads in submission. She knew they'd obey her order, they had to. As Eron would have said, she'd gone all alpha on them.

After that they'd left her room so she could sleep and they could pack. Though she felt bad about the order, she couldn't help but be amazed that they had listened to her. Never before had she order such high ranking wolves to do something successfully. This showed that she was growing and becoming more powerful this both excited her and scared her. She had to be careful though, she had heard stories of wolves that had become alphas before their pack needed a new one, and they were unable to stay in their own packs because a pack can only have one alpha.

With these worrisome thoughts haunting her mind she fell into a light fitful sleep.

The next morning Anra rose early to see her guards off, it was clear they were upset with her, but they could do nothing about it. They wished her luck and told her to be safe; they also warned her to be wary of the others and to trust nobody but herself. She thanked them and assured them that'd she be alright. And with that they left. She watched as the two figures vanished from her sight into the woods still in their human form, they would stay that way until they were past the elven borders.

Anra felt a ball of anxiety unravel in her chest once Jag and Sut were hidden from view; she was on her own now, no pack members for her to rely on now. She took a shaky breath and reminded herself that this was how it was going to be until the Fellowship was completed. She swallowed and turned around deciding it was time to find some breakfast.

HGCMHGCMHGCMHGCMHGCMHGCMHGCMHGCMHGCMHGCMHGCMHGCMHG 

After Anra had eaten her breakfast she went for a walk in the gardens wanting to get away from the crowds of elves, and secretly hoping to run into a certain ranger. She didn't know why she liked him so much, he was just really nice, and he seemed to be the only one who didn't mistrusted her on the spot just for being a Nightstalker. Though to be fair she didn't really trust any of the others either. She wondered if her race would ever be accepted back into society.

Her mind wandered back to breakfast, she had been able to strike up a conversation with the dwarf, Gimli, over eggs, who also didn't get along well with the elves, but once he had realized what she was he had become nervous and clearly uncomfortable. The conversation soon after had become awkward and strained, then abruptly ended with him making up some excuse about having to meet with someone. Though she wasn't too upset, he had smelled kind of funny to her, like metal, ale, and rock.

As she was walking through the gardens she got the distinct feeling that someone was there with her. She took a deep breath in hopes of catching a scent, but even with her sensitive her nose she could only just barely pick up a scent over the heavy flowerily smell, it smelled like man.

"I don't appreciate being followed," Anra growled, she spun around just in time to see the red haired Gondorian, Boromir, stepping into her line of sight.

"Why are you coming with us?" he said cutting right to the chase. "There is no place for a woman on this quest."

She gave a small snarl, "I am more than meets the eye."

She felt sick as his eyes traveled up and down her body, lingering in some places longer than others. She fought the urge to cross her arms over her chest self-consciously. "What could you possibly mean by that?" he questioned as his eyes lazily made their way back up to her face.

Her dislike for the Gondorian increased, "You ever heard of a Nightstalker?"

At first he looked confused, and then as realization dawned on him his eyes widened in horror than disgust, "So then why are you here? To bring us out into the wild only to turn on us? To help us so that when we're done your species can claim that we owe you a favor? To deliver us into the hands of the enemy?"

Anra snarled in anger, "What the hell is wrong with you! Do you think we're savages? Why would we want the enemy to win? They're just exactly that, the enemy! And why would we want to claim a favor from you and your kind, what could you have that we would possibly want?"

Now Boromir looked uncomfortable, "I don't know, more territory?"

"Why would we want more territory? We have been perfectly happy where we are now and have been for many years! I volunteered for this quest because I want to help and you have no right to tell me otherwise!" she yelled, but still in affirm authoritative voice.

He swallowed uncertainly, she had a feeling that he was feeling her will being imposed on him, but didn't know it. He turned stiffly around and started to march away in anger, but not before he said, "You'd better watch your back, because no one else here will."

She let out an angry breath as she watched him stalk away from her, she needed to run. Now. With that she took off running down towards the forest that surrounded the city, once she reached it she shifted.

It felt great to be back in her other form, to be able to stretch her four legs and to run quickly through the trees and undergrowth. Her feet pounded rhythmically on the forest floor as she dodged around branches and splashed through streams. She followed several animal trails and scared a heard of deer just for the heck of it, not actually wanting to hunt since she was still pretty full from breakfast.

She must have ran for a couple hours because by the time she was walking back towards the elven city the sun hung high in the sky, already past its highest point. Once she was but a few yards from the edge of the forest she shifted back into her human form, shaking out her tired limbs. She felt a lot better after that, but she was still kind of angry from her encounter with Boromir. He was the perfect example of how Nightstalkers described humans: arrogant, self-righteous, smelly bastards who were stupid and closed minded. Though Anra knew that despite her former beliefs, not all human men were like this, Aragorn was proof of that.

'Speak of the devil', she thought, 'or I guess think of the devil that is.' He had just stepped into view from behind some trees. "Now who's spying," she teased

"I was most certainly not," he denied with a playful smile. He handed her a water skin that she drank from gratefully. She gave it back to him then lifted her thick curls up from her neck, she was hot.

"Thank you," she said in response to the water. She found that she was somewhat surprised that she had taken the water and drank it without even thinking to check to see if it was safe to drink. 'That was very sloppy of you,' she chastised herself. But she trusted him, even though she hardly knew him. Strange.

"You're staring," Anra informed Aragorn, feeling rather self-conscious under the scrutiny of his powerful gaze.

He apologized. "I have just never seen somebody shift before," he admitted, "I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable."

She ducked her head bashfully, "It's fine." She glanced up at him from under her eyelashes.

Neither one of them said anything for several moments; she scuffed her boots against the ground awkwardly not sure how to break the silence. Finally she said, "Well I hope it didn't upset you." She winced slightly when she heard her tone, she hadn't meant to sound so bitter, but she kept thinking of Boromir and most of the elves prejudice against her and her kind.

Aragorn raised his eyebrows saying, "Not at all, I think it is quite interesting, amazing actually."

"Well you'd be one of the few who think so."

"Are they giving you a hard time here?" he questioned. 'Aww he sounds worried, how sweet,' she thought.

"Most of them just ignore me, only some of them actually have the guts to say anything," she thought of how quiet and uncomfortable Gimli had become after he had found out what she was.

"Give them time; most of them are afraid of you."

"Afraid of me?"

"They don't understand you or your powers; they don't know what to think of you just quite yet."

"Yeah maybe," she said doubtfully.

"They don't know what you are capable of; your kind has been a mystery for many years and now you are going on this quest that could either save or destroy us all, it scares them."

"Well it's not our fault that we haven't been around, we're not exactly welcomed in many places," Anra huffed.

"Nightstalkers aren't exactly known for their hospitality either," he pointed out.

The she-wolf started to growl, then stopped, he kind of had a point, not that she'd admit it of course. Instead she flicked her hair behind her shoulders and abruptly stood up saying, "Do you know when we are leaving?"

"In a few days from now I believe. Have you met our other companions yet?"

"Just you, Gimli, and Boromir. Oh, and I had a brief conversation with the wizard."

"That's Gandalf," he supplied. "We will also be accompanied by Legolas, the prince of Mirkwood, and the hobbits: Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin. Oh and also Sam's pony, Bill," Aragorn remembered.

She must have made a face at the mention of the pony because then he asked with laughter in his voice, "What do you have against Bill?"

"My kind and horses don't mix well, they don't trust us."

He chuckled, "Well can you blame them? They probably think you're going to eat them!"

She smiled, happy with the lighter conversation topic. She started to tell him a story about this one time a few years ago when her, Isla, and Eron had found a horse wandering around in the forest and they had attempted to catch and ride it. It was safe to say the horse did not like that idea nor would they be trying it again anytime soon. Still to this day whenever she saw a horse she became instantly sore. Not that she really saw that many horse…

Aragorn laughed at her animated expressions and gestures as the two of them walked back into the city. She finished up telling it when they were on the patio where the meeting had been held the previous day. "You should set sometime aside to meet the other members of the fellowship before we leave here," he recommended.

"I suppose I can do that," she said with a teasing smile, though she felt a little nervous about meeting them.

"Good, now have to go, I'll see you later," with that he strolled off in some other direction that she had yet to explored.

Once he was out of sight she sighed, not sure what to do with herself. She decided just to wander again, though not in the direction Aragorn had just gone. She didn't want him to think she was following him.

Anra chose a path at random and followed it. She rounded a corner and came out onto a stone balcony that over looked the waterfalls, the sound of excited laughing and cheery talking reached her sensitive ears, and the smell of what must have been lots of food tickled her nose. The ones making the all the noise turned and looked at her, it was the four hobbits.

"Hello!" called the smallest of the four cheerfully; she believed, if her memory served her correctly, that his name was Pippin.

"Hello," she said in reply warily, uncertain of how they would react to her.

"Can we help you, are you lost?" asked the one who looked a lot like Pippin, but was a bit taller.

"No, I'm just exploring a bit," she said with a smile, hoping not to scare them.

"You're coming with us on the Fellowship, aren't you?" questioned the slightly plumper hobbit.

"Yes, I am."

"I never caught your name," said Frodo.

"It's Anra," she stated simply.

"Are you the Nightstalker everyone has been talking about?" they questioned curiously.

"Yeah, I am a Nightstalker," she said with a proud tilt of her chin. Their eyes widened, though not in fear, but rather excitement. That made her happier then she'd like to admit.

"Wow," murmured one of them.

Then Frodo said, "I'm Frodo, this is Sam," he gestured towards the plump one, "this is Merry," towards the one that looked like Pippin but was taller, "and this is Pippin."

"It's very nice to meet you all," she said kindly.

"And you my Lady," replied Sam politely.

Anra laughed, "Please don't call me that, I hate formalities."

"Of course m—Anra," he blushed.

"Can we see you shift?" Pippin blurted out.

"Pippin!" hissed Merry, while whacking him on the back of his head.

"That is what it is called, shifting?" Frodo questioned curiously.

She smiled at their non-hostile interest, "Yes that is what it is called, and its fine, that's not offensive to ask or anything."

"That's good, I must apologize for my cousin, he does not think before he speaks," Merry said giving Pippin another look.

She laughed and said again, "It's fine, like I said it's not offensive to ask."

They all looked at her hopefully, clearly wanting to see her in her other form. 'Kind of a strange request, but at least they're not scared of me,' she thought. "Okay, I'll show you," Anra said, "just so long as you don't freak out once I've shifted."

"We won't," they chorused eagerly.

She took a deep breathe then she shifted.

She heard them gasp; she raised her head and looked up at them. They had taken a few steps back wide eyed. In this form her back came up to the tops of their curly haired heads.

"Wow," one of them whispered again.

She gave a small hello woof and wagged her tail in greeting. They stared at her in amazement, then one of them, Pippin, stepped forwarded with his hand stretched out.

"Can I touch you?" he asked. Anra bobbed her head up and down, hoping he'd get the message. He took that as a yes and stroked her fur, "You're really soft," he murmured. She gently nosed at him affectionately. He laughed when she sniffed in his hair around his ears, "That tickles!"

The other three hobbits approached her timidly, but soon overcame their nerves as they pet her and she sniffed them. Anra nudged at them playfully and they continued to laugh. As they played around the she-wolf committed their scents to memory, so that she'd be able to track them if they ever got split up on their journey to Mount Doom.

"Can you understand us when you're like this?" Frodo inquired.

The Nightstalker nodded her head in affirmation, then gave a small yip to make sure she got the message across.

"What's going on out here?" they heard a gruff voice call. Before Anra could shift back into her human form the wizard, Gandalf the Grey came out onto the balcony. "Oh!" he exclaimed when he saw Anra in her wolf form.

She quickly shifted not sure how those other than the hobbits would react to her being in her other form. He must have seen the worry on her face before she was able to mask it, because he said, "You know it's quite all right for you to be in your other form here."

"Others, I feel, may disagree with that statement," Anra answered stiffly.

"Would you let that stop you?" he had one bushy eyebrow raised.

A slight smile pulled at the corner of her mouth, "Not if I truly wanted to."

The old wizard gave her a smile, "As I have said before, I am glad you decided to come, I believe we can learn very much from each other."

She nodded in agreement, and then Gandalf said, "I was just coming out to make sure you all know that we are going to leave the day after tomorrow."

After the grey wizard had left, the she-wolf and the hobbits spent the rest of the afternoon and evening together eating dinner when it was time. She was surprised by the amount of food the small creatures could eat and still be hungry, she had always thought that Nightstalkers ate a lot, but the being that came between a hobbit and its food was either one of the bravest things ever or just incredible stupid.

She really enjoyed spending her time with the four of them, they were great. They didn't judge her for what she was, but who she was instead. They had peppered her with questions about her and her life in the pack. They had exchanged stories of childhood pranks and their punishments. They thought it was funny when they found out that they were all older than her, (Anra being only twenty years of age).

She was glad that they had all volunteered to join the Fellowship, though she was also worried, she didn't want to see any of them hurt and with journeys like these someone always got hurt, often more than one someone.

After they had all said goodnight she headed back the way she had come, not actually sure how else to get back to her chambers without retracing her footsteps. When she reached the patio where Aragorn had split earlier in the day, she couldn't contain her curiosity of where he had went. So she did the only logical thing there was to do, she walked down the path that he had taken following his scent down it.

'Okay, so maybe it's not the _only_ logical thing to do, but it certainly is the easiest at the moment,' the princess thought.

She trotted down the winding path, wondering if maybe she should shift while doing this, it would be easier to follow his scent that way, but her white fur would practically glow in this darkness. And she would rather not be seen and questioned about what she was doing. Gosh, that would be awkward, 'Yeah, don't mind me, I'm just following the future king of Gondor's scent to see where he likes to hang, 'cause I'm too chicken to just straight out ask him.' She shook her head thinking sarcastically, 'Yeah, that'd go over well.'

Aragorn's scent was stale, so he must have either left a different way, or he was still there, wherever there is. The scent lead her to another one of the cities beautiful gardens where his was joined by another one. This scent was definitely an elf's, and definitely female. The two scents were extremely concentrated here, which meant that the two of them had lingered here together for quite a while.

Anra felt a strange twist in her stomach, that was in no way at all pleasant. 'Am I jealous?' she thought worriedly. 'No,' quickly dismissing the thought, 'I can't be jealous, I have no reason to be so. To be jealous she'd have to have something I want, and she doesn't. She doesn't.'

Though Anra couldn't help but feel happy that their scents went in different directions, instead of the same. Making a swift decision she followed the female elf's scent down its path towards the buildings. She wanted to know who it was he had been meeting with. 'Not because I'm jealous, because I'm not, I am just curious. That's all.'

The trail continued on ways to the buildings up until the last moment that it swerved away towards another balcony. "How many balconies does this place have?" she grumbled quietly under her breath. She pushed her reddish brown curls behind her shoulder then stepped silently out onto the balcony.

A beautiful elf woman was standing there staring out into the night with her back to Anra. She was tall and thin, with long dark hair, a stunning dress and ivory white skin. She must have made some noise because the elf woman turned around and looked at her with surprised eyes, "Hello," she said. Her voice was thick, it sounded like she may have been crying, but Anra couldn't tell for sure because her complexion was still clear. Of that Anra knew she was jealous, whenever she cried, (which wasn't very often), her skin would become all blotchy and her eyes and nose would turn red.

"Hello, sorry I didn't realize anyone was out here," she lied. "I can go," she started to turn around.

"Wait, no, it's fine, you can stay," the elf sounded almost like she hoped Anra would. 'She must not know who I am,' she thought dryly.

"Okay, I'm Anra," she wondered if now she'd be asked to leave, or maybe the elf would be polite and make up an excuse to leave instead.

The elf's eyes widened again, "The Nightstalker?"

Anra raised her chin, "Yes."

"My name is Arwen," she responded after a moment. Now it was Anra's eyes' turn to widen, she was talking to the elves' princess. 'She is certainly pretty enough for the role.'

"Is there something wrong that I can help you with?" Anra offered politely.

"No, it's okay," she answered. Then she said, "Actually can I ask you something?"

Anra looked at Arwen in surprise, but the said, "Yes of course you can."

"You're a princess, right?" Anra nodded in affirmation, "but your father allowed you to go on this quest, even though it is dangerous?"

Now Anra hesitated, "Well, he doesn't actually know about the quest, when he sent me here we thought it was just for a meeting of sorts."

"But you are going, even if it is against his wishes?"

"Yes," she answered simply, knowing it was the truth.

"Do you think he would be okay with you going on it if he knew about it?"

Once more Anra hesitated before answering, "Yes, once he thought about what it is for and what it means, then yes, he would not stop me."

"Even though you are a woman?"

This question ticked Anra off a bit, 'Valar, the other races are sexist,' she thought in annoyance. "Where I come from it does not matter if you are male or female, we share equal roles in life. We do the same jobs, we can have the same ranks, I'm to be the next alpha even though I am a woman."

"I'm sorry, I meant no offence," the elf princess jumped in quickly. "I guess things are just done differently around here. So your father is not very protective of you?"

Anra shrugged, "I don't get special treatment if that is what you mean. Back home I do the same things as everyone else, I still patrol and hunt and train like any other Nightstalker would. And I don't have guards, the only reason I did when I came here was because it was a long journey. I am treated just like any other Nightstalker is."

Arwen was listening to her with amazement written on her face, "Things are indeed very different there."

"You sound wistful," she observed in a gentle voice.

"I sometimes wonder what my life would be like if I had more freedom to do what I want, but I love and respect my father and his wishes," the last part of her speech sounded forced and strained.

Anra raised an eyebrow, "You really don't want to do whatever you were just told to do, do you?"

She laughed, "Is it that obvious?" brushing another tear away, Anra shrugged. "Aren't you going to ask what it is?" she questioned.

"It's none of my business unless you want to tell me, so no I'm not going to ask."

"You're different, very frank, I like that, it's refreshing," she said with a water smile.

The she-wolf found herself unable to do anything but smile back at the other princess; she liked Arwen even though she was a smelly elf who may or may not have something going on with a certain ranger for whom she had absolutely no feelings for whatsoever.

"You see Middle Earth is dying and the elves are fading with it, so my father wants to send me away to the Grey Haven so that I will be safe," she explained.

"I don't see what is wrong with that," said Anra, while wondering why Arwen was sharing this with her, didn't she know that their kinds didn't get along?

"But I don't want to go, the man that I care about is here, as is the only home I have ever known, is it really that unreasonable for me too not want to?" as she said this her hand went to the base of her neck and touched a beautiful diamond necklace she was wearing.

Anra wavered a little before answering, carefully choosing each word she used. "It's not unreasonable to not _want_ to go, but it is to not go period. If you are going to die from simply staying here so what if what you care about is here, you're just going to die anyways," she winced at her harsh choice of words. "And about the man you care about, did you even talk to him yet?" she had a sinking feeling about who that man was.

Arwen bit her lip looking even more upset, "I did talk to him…"

When the elf did not elaborate on want he had said to her Anra plowed on, "Also think about your loved ones, don't you think they would be happier knowing you are safe and out of harm's way then worrying about your wellbeing, especially when they should be focused on the war at hand? Another thing, if that man you speak of truly and purely cares for you hisvoice shall beg for you to stay while his eyes plea for you to go, but if he loves you, truly loves you, his voice shall beg for you to go while his eyes plea for you stay."

Anra waited for her to respond, but she remained silent as a winter's night. She suppressed a yawn, feeling tired and realizing how late it was getting said, "Well just think about what I said and what you truly want as well, in the end no one but you can make the decision." With that she bade the other woman a goodnight and walk off to start the search for her chambers so she could get some shut eye.


	5. Piggy-Back Rides and Departures

**Disclaimer: I do NOT own Lord of the Rings**

**A/N: thank you for the reviews, follows, and favorites, and please feel free to leave a review to tell me how you feel about the story so far :)**

**I am going out of town for a bit so I won't be able to update again till at least Thursday sorry :(**

She awoke late next morning, the sun had already completely risen and the city was alive with the hustle and bustle of the elves' daily lives. She stood out on her chamber's balcony, (seriously this place had like a million of them), and watched them scuttling to and fro. She wondered if what Arwen said about the elves fading was true. Anra found it hard to believe, but the she-elf had had no reason to lie to her about it.

That led her to thinking about what Arwen had said about the "man she cared for", she didn't know for sure, but she had a suspicion about who he was, why else would the two of them had met in the gardens all by themselves and stayed for hours. She wondered if they had ended up having a fight before they had left the garden, why else would she have been so upset. 'It's none of your business Missy, keep your nose out of the nettles and it won't get stung,' a voice reprimanded in her mind sounding suspiciously like her nursemaid Patia, telling her basically to mind her own business or risk the consequences.

She shook her head, trying to clear it of her thoughts, but when it didn't work she decided to go for another run in the surrounding forests. She hurried through the corridors, then out across the pathways without getting stopped once, though she didn't slow down until she was under the cover of the trees.

Once she was there she shifted, grateful to be able to be in her other form. When she had been younger she had been told that her mother had joked that she was more wolf than girl because she was always in that form so much more than her human one, though her father would always just laughed and said that she was a true Nightstalker alpha. The thoughts of her mother made her sad and lonely, she missed her. Her mother, Sage, had been on a border patrol when they had come across a group of Isengard orcs, they had been sorely outnumbered and Sage had taken a mortal blow from one of them meant for one of the pups in training that was with them. The pup had survived, but Sage, her mother, had fallen. Anra had been four years old at the time.

Anra ran harder and harder, shouldering her way through bracken and leaping over streams. Finally, when she had had enough, she slowed to a stop and flopped down onto the ground panting, her trainers would be so proud, she thought wryly. She pushed herself to her feet and trotted back the way she came feeling better now that she had worked that out of her system.

At the edge of the woods she shifted back to human and walked towards the stone city. She decided she was going to find some lunch, 'cause she was pretty hungry from skipping breakfast then going for that run. Though about half way there she ran into Arwen, she said hello in greeting and the other girl did the same.

"How are you this morning, did you come to any decisions?" Anra asked in a friendly manner.

"I'm fine, but no I have yet to come to a final decision," she said in a less than chipper tone.

"Well I hope what I said last night didn't make it any more difficult than it already is."

"No, what you said made a lot of sense, and did help quite a bit actually, so thank you," she said with a sincere voice.

"No problem," she said, and then they fell into an awkward silence. And just to make things even more so guess who walked around the corner, that's right, Aragorn.

"Hello," he greeted.

"Hello," Arwen said at the exact same time Anra squeaked out a, "Hi," Anra turned bright red, while Arwen kept her cool. Anra couldn't help but feel rather self-concussions standing next to Arwen who looked so nice and put together, in her long blue dress with her gentle, calm dark wavy hair. Whereas Anra was wearing yesterday's trousers and tunic, covered in dirt head to toe from her run and her curls must have been fluffed out more than a foot from her head. Not to mention their heights, Arwen must have been at least five seven, and she was only five one, and throw in her face full of freckles; she was a cave troll next to Arwen's- well elf.

Aragorn's eyes shifted between the two of them, "Do you two know each other?"

Anra nodded, and Arwen answered, "Yes, we met last night, she actually gave me some good advice."

"Did she?" he murmured his eyes had settled on the elf woman.

"Jeez, you two make it sound like it's hard to believe," she said only slightly faking the hurt tone.

"We need to talk," the ranger said, and judging by the fact that he was still looking at Arwen he wasn't talking to Anra.

"Yeah, okay, I'm just gonna go," Anra said feeling rather awkward in the middle of what seemed to be a lovers' spat. She hurried away from the two of them, but not towards the kitchens, it was safe to say she had lost her appetite. Feeling the need to be cheered up she knew just where to go. "Let's go find me some hobbits," she muttered.

She was able to find all the hobbits but Frodo, and the others told her that he was seeing his Uncle Bilbo who lived here apparently. She wondered what the hobbit did to live with the elves.

She knew she had made the right choice of coming to see the hobbits; they cheered her up right away. They talked and ran around causing mischief among the elves and ate plenty of food, for once she had been with the hobbits long enough she had regained her appetite. At one point Pippin had wanted to ride on her back when she was shifted, she had been rather offended saying, "Do I look like a pack mule to you?" Though after several hours of listening to him beg and complain she finally agreed to let him try, just to shut him up, and just once for a quick ride as long as he swore never to tell anyone outside of the ones who were with them at the moment. He swore.

Frodo joined them just as she was about to shift so Pippin could get his ride, he looked a little shaken but he insisted that everything was alright. So unable to stall any longer Anra shifted and crouched low so the youngest hobbit could scramble up onto her. She stood up to her full height, he was surprisingly light. She could feel his small hands curling into her fur tightly so that he wouldn't fall off. She heard the others laughing at the sight, she knew it probably looked pretty funny, a hobbit riding a giant white wolf, but that didn't stop it from hurting her pride a little. So she gave them a small snarl, but that only made them laugh harder.

Anra shifted her weight a little, hoping that he understood that she was about to start moving, he did. Not that it would be too bad of a thing if he fell off, it'd probably be also pretty funny, at least to her, as long as he didn't get hurt. She started off at a brisk walk, then started to pick up speed to a jog, then a light run, then a gallop, then a full out sprint. When they slowed back down to a walk she could hear Pippin breathing heavily and shaking a bit. At first she was worried something was wrong, but then he started laughing and fell off onto his bum.

"That was so awesome!" he cried in excitement, still laughing his head off, the other hobbits joined in. Soon much to the she-wolf's protest she had given all four of them multiple rides around the garden where they were.

"How many of us do you think you can carry at once?" Merry asked.

"Well we'd all fit, but do you think you would be able to lift us all?" Pippin cut in.

She huffed, "What do you think I'm not strong enough to lift you all?" And but a few moments later she was running around with four little hobbits seated upon her back. 'I really need to work on my pride,' she thought shaking her head.

She walked through the gardens with them on her back; even all four of them together wasn't too heavy, though she wasn't sure if she'd be able to carry them all in her human form. Anra supposed it could be useful to know that she could carry them like this if need be, though if she did she felt like she'd never be able to live it down.

Anra spun around, practically knocking the hobbits off their perch, when she heard somebody clear their throat behind her. It was Aragorn, and he was smirking, the nerve of that man!

"Gentlemen," he said still smirking, "I need to speak with the Lady," when none of them moved he added "now if you would not mind."

She gave a small growl, but lowered down so they could climb off easily, then she shifted. The hobbits said goodbye and scampered off to who knows where to probably eat some more. She reluctantly turned to look at the man in front of her, having no doubt in her mind that he was the one that Arwen had been talking about. She could see why the elf felt that way about him, he was tall, dark, handsome, caring, smart, a natural leader… 'Okay now you're drabbling,' she mentally chided herself. 'So what he has a few good qualities, that's all there is to it, you don't really feel any real attraction.'

"So how did your conversation with Arwen go?" as soon as she said this she wanted to smack herself, in the face, hard, possible with a chair. What was wrong with her, why on earth would she ask that?

Aragorn also looked at her like she was crazy, but only for a second, then he looked at her like normal, "It went fine."

The silence that followed his reply was dreadful; eventually she broke it by saying, "You wanted to speak with me?"

He looked grateful for her prompt and said, "Yes, I need to inquire something."

"What?"

"Do you know how to fight?"

"Yes, of course I know how to fight!" she snapped, feeling extremely offended.

He held up his hands in surrender, "I figured you would, I just had to make sure, most women don't." This was clearly the wrong thing to say.

"Nightstalker women are not as feeble bodied or minded as your women are! We can fight and hunt just as well as any male can!" she was practically snarling when she got to the last part. "Though I'm sure that if given the chance many of your women would be able to fight and do "a man's job" as well!"

Aragorn continued to hold his hands up in submission, "I never said they couldn't."

Anra sighed, "No, I suppose you didn't. I'm just tired of people thinking I can't do things because I'm a female," 'and a Nightstalker,' she added silently to herself.

"So, I see that you met the hobbits," he said changing the subject, his smirk returning.

"Yes, I did. And if you ever mention what you just saw to anyone I'll—I'll—I'll eat you," she couldn't think of a better threat at the moment.

He laughed. "Oh boy, I'd better not then," his voice full of mirth.

"No you'd better not!" she agreed with a playfully growl.

"So tell me, what are you doing giving hobbits piggyback rides anyways?"

"Well, they said I wouldn't be able to lift them all at once so…" she decided to leave out the part where she gave them all individual rides first, wanting to be able to keep a little of her pride.

He shook his head chuckling, "Did it ever occur to you that they did that on purpose so that'd you'd try to prove them wrong?"

"Try and succeed," she corrected, "and yes, but they were already on top of me." Half a moment later she joined in on his laughter.

After a moment his mood sobered, "You should probably go eat soon, so you can go to sleep. We leave tomorrow, just after sunrise."

Anra sighed and nodded, she was pretty tired from running around today, first by herself in the forest, then with the hobbits through the gardens. Then combined that with her late night last night with Arwen, it didn't matter that she had slept in late that morning, she was one tired she-wolf.

So happy with an excuse to leave she bade him a goodnight and did exactly that.

HGCMHGCMHGCMHGCMHGCMHGCMHGCMHGCMHGCMHGCMHGCMHGCMHG 

The next morning Anra woke early, her stomach turning with so many nerves that she had a bellyache. She quickly bathed and got dressed, pulling her still damp hair back into a French braid. She put on a pair of dark green leggings with an off white blouse and a sturdy brown leather belt that would hold her two silver blades, along with her comfortable dark brown leather boots. She pulled on her grey cloak and picked up her already packed bag, ready to leave. She went through the kitchens, grabbing something to eat before she headed outside to the city's entrance where she would meet the others.

She arrived there just at sunrise; it looked like she was the last to arrive. Boromir leered at her, while the hobbits and Gandalf smiled. Legolas and Gimli were too busy glaring at each other to take note of her arrival and Aragorn was speaking quietly to Arwen. So she returned Gandalf and the hobbits' smiles and then shot Boromir a nasty look, this morning was already shaping into a great one.

Elrond then came out along with a bunch of other elves and an extremely old hobbit, who she assumed must be Frodo's uncle, Bilbo. Lord Elrond started giving what she assumed was a farewell speech of sorts, but truthfully she wasn't listening at all. She was too busy nervously eyeing the horse, or excuse me, pony they were bringing with them, Bill.

She was about to start edging further away from it when the rest of the Fellowship started turning towards the gateway about to leave. She hurried towards the front where Gandalf and Frodo were, because it looked like Sam was going to lead the pony in back. Just before they headed out she head Frodo whisper to Gandalf, "Mordor, Gandalf. Which way is it?"

He responded, "Left."

She threw a glance over her shoulder to make sure she was out of reach of Bill and saw Aragorn give Arwen a smile and nodded before he followed them. She tried not to think about it.


	6. Intimidation and Keeping Warm

**A/N: I'm sooo sorry that I haven't updated in so long, I hope you all can forgive me :)) I should be able to start updating again regularly so that's good. you know what's also good? REVIEWS! :D please do drop a review at the end so I know how I'm doing so far! thank you**

The ten companions walked for a while without anyone saying a word, for what was there to be said? Finally after a while Merry and Pippin started talking with Sam, and Frodo with Gandalf, and then eventually Legolas with Aragorn. She was pretty happy with walking in silence when the Gondorian, Boromir, walked up to her, clearly with the intent of speaking. This confused her, he had made it quite clear the other day that he did not like her and she was pretty content with leaving it that way, so what would he have to say to her?

"So you actually came," this was a statement more than a question.

"Yes, yes I did. I made an oath and a plan on keeping it," she replied in a tight voice.

He gave her another sour look, "Fine I suppose we can tolerate you being here, but I heard you were playing with the little ones yesterday and that I can assure you will not be tolerated, you will not corrupt them!"

'Tolerate, corrupt, _we_! What the hell is he talking about?!' she thought angrily. "First of all," she snarled, "I do not need to ask your permission before I go or do anything! And second of all the hobbits are not children nor are they stupid, they can think for themselves and do what they want as well!"

"They just do not know of your kind's treachery yet."

"My kind's—my kind's treachery, what the hell are you talking about? What have the Nightstalkers ever done to your people?"

He opened and closed his mouth a couple of times as if he could not think of anything to say, then he just said, "Your kind is nothing but animals pretending to be human." Anra rubbed her temple, 'Why is he still talking?' "Animals, that's all you are, that's all you'll ever be!" he spat the last part.

She looked at him like he was crazy, then he opened his mouth as if to continue when Aragorn cut in saying in an angry voice, "That's enough!" Boromir cast Aragorn a disbelieving look as if to say, 'You're siding with that?' but said nothing more and stalked off.

"Are you okay?" he asked, his gentle grey eyes showing concern.

"Me yep I'm fine, just dandy, your time would be better spent worrying about Boromir, and the continuation of his good health. You know, accidents tend to happen on dangerous journeys like these, people can get hurt, eat even," her voice was fuming and she felt her canines slipping out. She had only been partly joking when she said the last part.

Aragorn rolled his eyes at this, "Saying stuff like that doesn't help you, especially when he's accusing you of being an animal."

The she-wolf gave a huff, "So what, are you agreeing with him?" She knew it was an unfair accusation, especially after he had just helped her shake Boromir, but she couldn't help it, she was frustrated and when she was frustrated she tended to take out her anger on those around her. She knew it was a bad habit and she was trying to break it, but how does that saying go? Old habits die hard.

"No, I'm not, I'm just saying that you shouldn't make it so easy for him," and with that he walked back over to Legolas and started talking with him again in Elvish. 'Great going Anra, you just made the only person who stood up for you against Boromir angry with you. Smooth, real smooth,' she thought in exasperation at herself.

The Fellowship walked for a while longer, Anra walked in silence wishing for the millionth time that that stupid pony wasn't in back with the hobbits. By the time they came to a stop for the night she was about ready to collapse from exhaustion, she wasn't use to walking this far in her human form. But of course they weren't done yet, they still had to set up camp, collect fire wood and make supper.

Truth be told it wasn't that bad, though by the time they were done she was beyond ready for sleep, so she set her bedroll down by the hobbits, shot Boromir one last dirty look and went to sleep. Though within about five minutes of her falling asleep she felt something starting to nudge at her, at first she just ignored it, but it just kept getting more and more insistent with each prod. Finally when she could not take it anymore she rolled over to face it and opened her tired green eyes, it was Pippin.

"Can I help you with something?" she growled.

Upon hearing her irritated tone he became nervous and wrung out his little hands before saying, "I heard you talking earlier and I was wondering… would you really do that?"

Anra looked at him in confusion not understanding what he meant, "Do what?"

"You know," he leaned forward a bit, "eat Boromir."

'Did he seriously just ask me that? He must have heard me talking with Aragorn earlier,' she realized. 'Man I've really got to stop threating to do that,' she berated herself. "I only eat people who wake me up in the middle of the night to ask dumb questions," she rumbled.

Pippin's eyes widened, "Night!" he yelped and rolled over to go back to sleep.

"Hobbits!" she muttered under her breath. She too rolled back over to go to sleep, but not before she saw Aragorn grinning at her over the fire with traces of laughter in his eyes, he had obviously heard the conversation.

The next morning they were up a little bit before dawn clearing up the area they had used for camp, and by dawn they were on their way. After a couple hours of walking in solitude Merry and Pippin walked up to her and started talking. She was glad for the company and their silly conversations, Pippin didn't seem to have any hard feelings about her scaring him the night before, in fact he actually found it quite comical.

She enjoyed listening to them talk about the Shire and they enjoyed hearing all about her life in her pack. Though all three of theirs' favorite topic was speaking about the different pranks they have pulled over the years. Anra thought the one were the two of them had stolen one of Gandalf's great big fireworks and set it off in side of a tent was hilarious. And the two hobbits were very interested in her one where she, Isla, and Eron had hooked buckets of mud above all of the doorways back home, so that whenever somebody opened a new door it would be dumped on their head.

Anra had been describing to them in detail how to properly attach the bucket to the doorway so that it would fall at the right moment when Gimli walked over to them and inquired about what they were talking so animatedly about.

"Anra was just telling us how to conduct a brilliant prank," Pippin blabbed, eyes lit with excitement.

"Pippin!" Merry and Anra hissed at the same time.

"Was she now," Gimli said, his hand stroking his long red beard.

"Umm," Merry said, trying to think of a way to undo the possible damage his cousin had just done.

"And you didn't think to include me? Dwarfs are particularly good pranksters," he proclaimed in a proud deep voice.

Merry and Anra exchanged amused looks, and then she said, "Well I suppose I can tell you too, as long as you swear to guard this knowledge from all who would do things to prevent it or other fun things from happening."

He laughed, and then agreed the humor clear in his voice. Anra proceeded to start over again with how to set the prank up properly.

Gimli walked with them for the rest of the day, and she decided that she did like him. She was happy that he no longer seemed to hold it against her that she was a Nightstalker, it gave her hope.

The next day they had decided to stop during the afternoon to rest and eat something. Gandalf, Gimli, and Legolas were discussing which way they'd take next, Boromir was teaching Merry and Pippin how to fight with Aragorn calling out pointers, while Frodo and Sam watched them and cooked. Anra was just coming back from taking a walk around the woods in her other form to give her wolf a stretch; she didn't like to be cooped up for so long.

Boromir looked up when she joined them in the clearing and questioned, "Where have you been?"

"I was taking a walk."

He narrowed his eyes, "We're on this break to stop walking for a bit."

She gave a slight growl, 'Why does he have to question every little thing I do?' She said out loud, "I needed to stretch my other form," she hoped that would get him off her back.

Unfortunately her wishes never did seem to come true, "Why haven't we seen this "other form" that you speak of yet?"

"Are you for real?" she asked looking at him like he was insane.

"You know, you probably haven't shown us because you're nothing but a scrawny flea-bitten pup!"

This time she really did snarl with her canines slipping out into view, "Scrawny flea-bitten pup?" she asked her voice dangerous.

At this point the rest of the Fellowship was listening in, looking worried. "Boromir," Aragorn warned.

But he didn't listen, "Come on prove me wrong, if you can," he challenged. Legolas and Gimli were watching with guarded curiosity, neither of them had seen her shift yet either.

'Scrawny flea-bitten pup? I am an alpha! I'll show him!' she thought. She shifted. Her sided were heaving in anger, her ears were pressed flat against her  
head, her head was low and her tail stuck straight out behind her. Her hackles and the fur along her back were raised and her lips were drawn back showing her fangs in an impressive snarl that would give her father a run for his money.

Boromir raised his sword up in defense, unsure if she was going to spring or not, she heard the one of the hobbits whimper slightly. They had seen her shift before, but she had always been gentle and friendly with them, nothing like right now, right now she looked like a demon.

She could smell the Gondorian's fear of her; she could see his racing pulse fluttering in his throat. She could do it, right now she could kill him, it would be so easy. All she'd have to do jump on him and tear out his throat, he wouldn't even have a chance to raise his sword against her. But no, she would not, she had promised Frodo that she'd help him on this quest, and killing Boromir would unfortunately not help at the moment.

So she lowered her lips and hackles and stood up to her full height instead, it seemed like the rest of the Fellowship let out a collective sigh of relief when she did this. Maybe Boromir would think twice before taunting her now, and with a huff she went over and laid down next to where Frodo was to watch Merry and Pippin work on their fighting skills.

Once she had lain down everyone went back to what they were doing, though every once in a while the others would sneak a glance at the massive she-wolf. Frodo was stroking her fur, it felt nice, so she closed her eyes a bit and listen to Frodo and Sam talk.

The other two hobbits were doing pretty well, until Boromir hit one of them in the wrist with his sword. Anra leapt to her feet when she heard his cry of pain, but they didn't need her to defend them. They had kicked him rather hard in the shin, and then yanked him off his feet onto the ground where they proceeded to tickle him. Aragorn walked over to them saying, "Alright gentlemen, that enough-" but before he could finish hey had pulled his feet out from under him as well.

"What is that?" asked one of the other hobbits gesturing to something dark in the sky that was approaching them.

"Oh nothing, just a wisp of clouds," Gimli dismissed.

"It's moving against the wind," Boromir observed worriedly, having finally stood up.

Anra also stood up and was gazing intently at the dark blotch now, 'That's not clouds' she thought, 'that's—'

"Crebain from Dunland!" Legolas cried cutting into her thoughts.

"Hide!" Aragorn ordered.

The white she-wolf didn't need to be told twice; she grabbed two of the nearest packs in her mouth and dove underneath some nearby brush. She heard the screeches of many birds as they flew by right over where the Fellowship had been resting mere moments ago. They left in their wake a stench of darkness, sulfur and death. Not a very nice combination.

When everyone came out of their hiding places Gandalf said, "The Gap of Rohan is being watched. We will have to take the Northern Passage." Everyone turned and looked up at the large snow covered mountains he was talking about.

She shifted and shouldered the bags she was holding, falling into step with the others as they marched towards their next trial, all previous feelings of playfulness gone.

That night they stopped at the foot of the first mountain, deciding to wait to tackle those the next day after a good night's rest. They huddled around the camp fire in a tense silence, everyone dreading what the next day would bring. They were all pressed against each other in hopes of beating the cold wind and snow that was coming off of the mountain, Anra found herself squeezed between Pippin and Aragorn.

The poor little hobbit was shivering so hard she could hear his teeth chattering; she reached her arm around behind him and wrapped him in a tight embrace, trying to share body heat and her cloak. It must have helped a little because his teeth stopped chattering and he wasn't shaking as bad as he had been before.

Aragorn was the exact opposite, he was still as a statue and warmth seemed to radiate off of him. She didn't want to intrude, but he was so warm she could not stop herself from leaning back against him. Once she was leaning against him he start to shift around restlessly, she started to pull away feeling pretty bad. 'Don't take it personally,' she told herself, 'he probably just doesn't want things to get awkward, besides you probably smell.'

But before she could pull all the way away, she felt his hand reach out and wrap itself around her shoulders pulling her back up against his chest this time instead of his side. She realized that he hadn't been trying to move away from her, but he had been just turning so she would be more comfortable, which she was. She then felt bad for immediately assuming that he had been trying to get away when he was just being even nicer.

Her head rested on his chest right above his heart, the steady rhythm of its beat soothed her, as did his warmth and scent. She found the last part of those thoughts kind of strange, they had been outside walking and running for days without bathing, she should be by all means repulsed by his smell, but she wasn't. Strange.

Everybody else smelled gross, like sweat and grease. Well except Legolas but he didn't count of two reasons: one he was an elf and elves already smelled bad to her, and two, well he's an elf, and elves just don't get all sweaty and greasy for some odd totally unfair reason. And also the hobbits, they still had their usual earthy scent, that wasn't all together that bad. But with Aragorn, it was different, she could still smell the sweat, it just didn't smell bad. Very strange indeed.

All thoughts of smells aside she was rather comfortable resting up against him like this, she felt safer than she had since she left her pack behind in the Fangorn and she was enjoying it. Just as his calm regular breaths were starting to lull her to sleep she felt one of his hands gently start playing with one of her many wild curls. It was a nice sensation to fall asleep to.


	7. Too Much Snow and Evil SeaFood

**A/N: Sorry for the lapse between updates, time got away from me again. Thank you to every one who has favorited and followed my story so far, and special thanks to those who have reviewed, an author loves nothing more than a review (except for maybe chocolate :D). So please at the end please do feel free to review, tell me what you think of it so far and/or if you have any suggestions or questions about it. Enjoy!**

Too soon was she being poked awake, way too soon. At first she was tempted to ignore it and just not get up for a bit longer, but then the cold started to get to her, both of her people heaters had already gotten up. Anra slowly opened her eyes with a reluctant groan. She was greeted by the sight of Merry and Pippins' faces way too close to hers.

She gave a yelp of surprise and shot backwards from them, this maneuver almost landed her in yesterday's fire pit. The two hobbit cousins fell over from laughing so hard. She climbed to her feet glaring at them while dusting herself off.

"That's the last time I share my cloak with you," she said to Pippin.

He started giving her puppy dog eyes and said, "Gandalf told us to wake you."

"Yeah," agreed Merry, "he said it was your turn to get Bill ready."

"What?!" she exclaimed, completely wakened by the mention of the treacherous pony, but the hobbits had already wandered away to do something else. 'Great, just great, now have to go take care of a bloody, freakin' horse… I don't care what they say, that thing is a horse, not a pony!'

She huffed again as she started to slowly walk towards it, she swallowed nervously and held her hands up as she approached it. "Nice pony, good pony. Don't mind me I'm just going to loaded you up." As she walked closer Bill's eyes started to roll with fear when he smelt her wolfy scent. She now stood by the tree he was tied to; she carefully reached a hand out for him to sniff. He tried to bite her. She yelped and snatched her hand back, looking around desperately hoping that someone would come help her. Anyone, even Boromir would be fine with her as long as they got her away from this demon! But no one came to her aid, why would they? None of them knew her problem with these animals, no one but Aragorn that is, and he was no were too be seen at the moment.

She tried to toughen her nerves, thinking over and over again, 'You can do this, you can do this. It's not even a horse; it's a pony for crying out loud! You're a wolf, you are the predator not it, you could eat this thing for breakfast!'

She repeated the last part out loud as she approached it again, "I could eat you if I wanted to, and so you'd better not give me any trouble! You hear me; I won't give you any trouble if you don't give me any," she continued to mutter stuff like this at the pony.

Anra walked up behind Bill with his bags, so that he couldn't bite her, though if anything that just made matters worse, instead of biting at her he tried to kick her. She was just about to throw his stuff at him in frustration when she heard someone clear their throat behind her. She spun around, it was Aragorn. Anra had never been so happy to see someone.

"It might help if you don't approach him from behind, that tends to make them nervous," he explained.

"Makes _them_ nervous?" she said in disbelief. "Whenever I go towards him from the front or side he tries to bite me! I told you I don't do horses," she added the last part with a huff.

"He's not a horse, he's a pony," Aragorn said with a good natured chuckle. "Anyways he probably won't let you near him because you probably smell like wolf to him."

"No, I don't think that's it, I think he's just evil," she gave an affirmative nodded as if that closed the matter.

"Or maybe you just need to build up his trust in you and not threaten to eat him," he gave her an endearing smile, then approached the pony with ease, gave it an apple and started petting it.

'Damn it,' she thought. "You heard that?"

"Yup," he said while he continued to pet Bill.

"Well that's easy for you to say," she said referencing what he said about building up trust with the creature. "You had an apple, plus you don't smell like wolf, and you've known this vicious animal longer."

"Come here," he said holding out his hand to her.

"Nope," she replied firmly.

"Don't be such a baby."

"I am not!" she defended herself.

"Yes you are, you won't even come up to a little pony."

"It's not little! Is it?" her voice full of worry.

Aragorn gave her a look.

"Can you please do this for me, please?" she begged.

"You're going to have to learn how to do it eventually," he warned.

"Yes, eventually, which means not now," she bargained.

"Okay, just this once, but-" he started.

But she cut him off, "Thank you, thank you, thank you! I am forever in your debt!" And then she ran off as fast as she could to get away from Bill, leaving Aragorn shaking his head at her in a mixture of exasperation and amusement.

They stared their trek up the mountain not to long later, she was up front with Legolas and Gandalf because Sam was walking with Frodo in the middle and he had Bill. In under an hour the snow was up to her thighs and she was hating on Legolas for the easy way he was able to walk on top of the snow instead of having to plow through it like everyone else.

Her legs were going numb from the snow; leggings probably weren't the best thing for her to be wearing during this part of their expedition. She felt bad for the poor hobbits; the snow was already up to their waists. 'This is just ridicules,' she thought, she had just tried to take another step, only to have the snow pull her boot right off her foot. She gave a startled squeak, lost her balance not wanting to put her barefoot in the snow, and fell over into yet another drift of snow.

Anra groaned, 'That's it I hate snow,' she thought. 'It's cold and wet, and I don't think I can get up. Oh this is just great!'

"Are you alright My Lady?" Legolas questioned looking down at her in the snow with a smirk on his face.

'Damn him,' she thought grumpily. Saying out loud, "I'm fine, I think I might just lay here for a bit," her words were dripping with sarcasm. Her pride stopped the young Nightstalker from admitting that she was stuck.

The elf prince raised an eyebrow but said nothing, instead he simply held out a hand to help her out of the snow drift. She accepted it then thanked him quietly.

She was pulling her boot back on when he suggested, "Maybe it would be easier for you if you shifted." She could have kissed him right then, why hadn't she thought of that?

Once she had shifted she was able to bound alongside of the wizard and elf with much more ease than before. She wound run a head of the Fellowship every once in a while, until Gandalf berated her saying, "Anra, don't run too far ahead, we can't see you in the snow with that white coat of yours." She pushed her nose into the wizard's hand so he knew that she understood. He chuckled slightly and gave her a quick scratch behind her ears before continuing onwards.

They had been walking for a bit longer when they heard a cry of surprise from the back of their group. Frodo had tripped and tumbled down the mountain, till Aragorn, who had been at the back of the group, caught the ring bearer and pulled him to his feet.

The she-wolf started to relax upon seeing that he was not hurt, but then she saw Boromir bending down and picking something up out of the snow, the Ring. He stood there staring at it for a couple of moments too long, then he said, "Such a small thing, yet it controls all our fates."

Anra felt her hackles rise, and she started to pull her lips back in the beginning of a snarl when Aragorn yelled, "Boromir, give the ring to Frodo." Clearly she wasn't the only one feeling uneasy with the Gondorian in this position, Aragorn had his hand on the hilt of his sword, ready for action if the events took a downwards turn.

Boromir seemed to be woken from his trance by Aragorn's words, he held the ring out to Frodo, who snatched it from him and held it close giving the man a look of distrust. Boromir gave Frodo and Aragorn a fake smile, ruffled Frodo's hair, and then continued up the mountain side as if nothing had happened. Only after he started walking away did Aragorn remove his hand from his sword and Anra lower her hackles, but she kept a wary eye on him.

A couple hours later the weather had taken a turn for the worse, the wind was howling louder than her pack during a full moon and the snow was coming down so hard she could barely see a thing. The hobbits had long since stopped walking, now both of the men were carrying two hobbits each, Merry and Pippin with Boromir, and Frodo and Sam with Aragorn. Anra had long stopped bounding ahead happily, now she was in the middle of the group, (Bill was in back with Gimli). Clumps of snow had frozen into her fur making it hard for her to move, her eyes stung from the never ending wind.

She heard Legolas something shout over the roar of the storm, though she couldn't tell what he had actually said. Then Gandalf yelled something she did hear, "SARUMAN!" then else something she missed. But what she did not miss was the loud cracking sound coming from the snow and ice above them when a bolt of lightning struck it. Then all of it came falling down on them and everything went black.

HGCMHGCMHGCMHGCMHGCMHGCMHGCMHGCMHGCMHGCMHGCMHGCMHG 

Anra painfully opened her blearily eyes with a groan, her head was throbbing painfully. She noticed three things immediately: first they were no longer on the mountain, but at a similar place to where they had camped the previous night, two, she was no longer in her wolf form, but in her human form instead, and three, she was covered in a bunch of cloaks with all four hobbits piled haphazardly around and on top of her fast asleep.

She carefully sat up, moving slowly, so not only to try not to aggravate her head anymore, but also so that she wouldn't wake any of the hobbits around her. Within seconds of Anra sitting up Aragorn was at her side, or as much at her side as he could be with the all the hobbits surrounding her.

"Hey easy there," he said with a relieved smile, "here take this," he handed her a water skin.

She drank from it gratefully before asking, "What happened?"

"Saruman was trying to bring down the mountain on us," he started with a dark expression, "lucky for us he only somewhat succeeded, just bringing down the one part on us. But after everyone else uncovered themselves we realized you weren't with us, it took us a long time to find you because your white coat blended in so well, too long. When we finally were able to dig you out we weren't sure if you were alive or not because you were so cold and passed out. We decided we couldn't stay up in the mountains any longer so we're going to take the Mines of Moria. When we were trying to figure out how to bring a giant unconscious wolf down a mountain you shifted, that's how we figured out why you were unconscious." She looked at him in confusion, he gesture to her forehead. Anra reached up and touched it, it was bandaged and extremely tender, 'Well that explains why my head hurts so bad,' she thought. "You were hit by a piece of ice during the avalanche," he further explained. "Legolas ended up carrying you, but you were so cold because you weren't moving so this happened," he said with a slight smile now gesturing towards the hobbits. "They haven't left your side since we set up camp; they care about you very much."

She smiled warmly at her loyal little friends, and told herself to remember to thank Legolas later for carrying her. She looked around the camp, everyone was sleeping, save herself and Aragorn, but she did not want to sleep anymore at the moment, she was hungry. She mentioned this to Aragorn who chuckled, then held out his hand, to help her get out of the tangle of hobbits without stepping on them.

He led her around to the other side of the fire where they had saved her some food from their dinner. She sat next to Aragorn and ate her dinner all the sudden feeling tired again, which she thought was ridiculous since she had already slept for half the day.

As if Aragorn could sense her reluctances to go back to sleep he said, "You'll need to be fully rested before we enter the mines tomorrow."

"Mmm," she mumbled, her eyes already slipping shut, "mines are warm right?"

But before an amused Aragorn could reply she leaned against him asleep. He watched the sleeping woman for a bit, happy she was alright. When they hadn't been able to find her on the mountain side he had been more frightened than he had been in many years. He told himself that he didn't know why that was, but he knew he was lying to himself.

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Everyone had been relieved the next morning when they had all woken and seen Anra was okay, especially the hobbits. She had made sure to thank Legolas who had just smiled and told her he was glad she was better. 'Okay, so maybe not all elves are that bad,' she thought with a smile. It seemed that everyone in the Fellowship had finally accepted her, everyone that is except for Boromir that is. She was pretty sure that he would have been okay with her not getting better, other than for the fact that then she'd slow them down.

They reached the walls of Moria by nightfall, all day Gimli had been going on and on about the hospitality of the dwarves they were going to see and the brilliance of their mining skills. Now he was telling them about how hard it was to get into one of their mines if they didn't know where the doors were and how sometimes even the dwarves themselves would forget and be locked out forever. She heard Legolas mutter something about how that didn't surprise him and she had to mask a smile so she wouldn't offend the dwarf.

Once the company had found the doors she sat down in great relief, they had been walking all day. The inscription on the doors was beautiful, but the fact that Gandalf didn't know the password was tiresome. She felt bad for Pippin, whom Gandalf lashed out at when he asked a question. Pippin was definitely the omega of the group.

She mentioned this to Merry, who looked offended on behalf of his cousin. Anra quickly explained, "Being the omega in the pack is certainly not a bad thing, in fact every pack needs one to be properly functional without falling apart. Being an omega doesn't mean that you are weak at all, that is a common misnomer," she continued. "Actually most omegas are rather brave in their own way, for it is their job to relieve the tension in the pack, whether that means doing something stupid for the others amusement or getting in between two fighting members of their pack, which can dangerous for them. They are often looked down on for being a fool, but without one a pack may turn on one another from frustration or anger."

Merry listened with interest then said, "That does sound a lot like Pip."

She fell silent, thinking about the roles of a pack other members of the Fellowship fit. Aragorn would be the alpha, most would try to say that she was wrong and that Gandalf was, but no Gandalf fit the role of a pack elder better. A pack elder was someone who everyone, even the alpha, treated with great respect and looked to during times of trouble when they needed guidance or advice, whereas Aragorn was a natural leader, someone that everyone listened to for orders and who administered justice fairly, without prejudice. Legolas would probably be his beta, his second in command, the person he would turn to when he needed leadership advice and who'd be able to fill his role if something ever happened to him. Everyone else would be the wolves in between, the hunters and fighters, the majority of the pack. Though she supposed the hobbits could be pups in training because of their inexperience and innocence.

'Boromir,' she thought, 'he reminds me of a bider.' A bider was a wolf that, well, bides its time, waiting for an opportunity to seize power from the true alpha. Now biders aren't completely bad, normally they're strong, competent fighters who will defend the pack from enemies just like any other member of the pack would. But the alpha always has to keep an eye on them so that they are ready if the bider challenges them for their power.

Anra came out of her musings when she heard a loud splash come from behind her, Merry and Pippin were throwing stones into the lake. She growled a little at their foolishness, but before she could tell them off for it Aragorn caught one of their arms and told them not to further disturb the waters.

Anra climbed to her feet and walked around a bit trying to beat the cold that was settling around her. She watched as Aragorn then went over to Sam to tell him that they'd have to let Bill go because they couldn't bring him into the mines with them. She felt bad for the hobbit that had clearly become quite attached to the pony, but she was glad they were leaving it behind. Not only would it have been next to impossible to lead him through the mines, but she still didn't trust the vicious animal, unlike everyone else around her, she was not fooled by its cute innocent act.

She sighed in boredom, when Frodo, with a stroke of genius, figured out what the password was. The large stone doors opened with a loud groan, though when they looked in they could not see farther than a few feet due to how dark it was. As they took some cautious steps in Gimli once again started to talk about what a great welcome they were about to receive, but something was wrong. Anra sniffed the air and she could not smell all these dwarves he was talking about or no fresh smells at least. All she could smell was dust, decay, the old stench of fear and a foul scent that reminded her of orc.

Someone stepped on something that went crunch and they all looked at the ground, it was covered in old dwarf bones, many with arrows still lodged in them. Legolas grabbed one of these said arrows and examined it, "Goblins," he proclaimed.

"This is no mine, it's a tomb," someone cried, Anra thought it was Boromir.

Gimli sobbed at the sight of some many of his dead brethren when somebody else said, "We should never have come here!"

There was a sharp cry of panic from the back of their group; Frodo had been grabbed by some giant, weird tentaclely thing that resided in the lake. Everyone leapt into action at once, Aragorn and Boromir drew their swords, Gimli wielded his ax, Legolas strung an arrow and Anra shifted, none of them waiting for the others before attacking the water beast that held their hobbit friend.

Anra had waded out into the water and was scratching and biting the creatures many tentacles, but she couldn't go in too deep for fear of being dragged under by the creature. She gave a snarl of frustration, she knew she wasn't much help fighting this thing; she didn't have the right sort of weapons. To defeat this monster you needed to be able to stab it, and while her teeth and claws were sharp and strong they were better for slashing and tearing rather than just good old fashion stabbing. She needed an enemy that she could get a better grip on, one that she could tackle and pin.

With all the water splashing all around her crazily and having to dodge stray tentacles, she didn't even realize that the water demon had dropped Frodo and everyone was running back into the mine. Nope, the she-wolf was still out there taking chunks out of the abnormally large fish, swearing she would never eat seafood again. Then she heard people shouting her name over all the noise from the water. At first she was confused, couldn't they see that she was a little preoccupied at the moment, but then she risked a quick glance over her shoulder to figure out what they all wanted. She saw them all standing in the mine's doorway waiting for her to join them before they fled.

She took on last bite of the thing before she turned tail and ran for the doors.

She made it just in time, because right after she was in the mine the giant lake monster was trying to get in too, but ended up collapsing the entrance instead. This gave them no option, but to continue deeper into the mine full of dead dwarves and goblins. Gandalf said this much.


	8. UncertaintFeelingsAndALamentFo rTheFalle...

**A/N: Thank you for all of the lovely reviews so far, they mean a lot!**

**DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN THE LORD OF THE RINGS!**

They walked in silence, for fear of alerting other creatures of darkness of their presence, if they had somehow failed to hear their entrance. The grey wizard's staff lit their path, not that she needed it, she had decided to stay in her wolf form which came with handy-dandy night vision.

Though, at one point they were walking along a narrow ledge when Gimli broke the silence to tell the rest of the Fellowship about the strange metal that the dwarves use to mine for there, mithril. According to Gandalf Frodo's uncle, Bilbo, had been gifted with a shirt made of this by the dwarves, and it was worth more than the entire Shire. 'Man,' she thought, 'at some point I really do need to find out what he did.'

They continued on walking for the rest of the day once more in silence. Or at least what Anra assumed was the rest of the day; there was no way to tell down where they were. She hated it down there; it was about as different as you could get from the forest where she came from, she was happy to see that Legolas agreed with her on that point. In fact the only person who seemed at ease down there was Gimli, which made sense say as he was a dwarf and they were in a dwarf mine. Everyone else was twitchy and on edge, even Gandalf and Aragorn, and they always seemed to be calm, but what unnerved Anra the most was just how twitchy and upset Gandalf was acting, he seemed to be even more so than the poor little hobbits that jumped every time someone kicked a pebble.

So it was pretty safe to say that the young Nightstalker was a little more than just relieved when they stopped for the night. She settled herself down next to Aragorn, hoping that the ranger would be able to put her nerves to rest. As usual his strong steady presence had a nice calming effect on her, though even that couldn't completely disband all of them.

As if sensing her anxiety, he reached a hand over and started to gently stroke her soft fur. He ran his hand down her back a couple of times then scratched behind her ears, this did the trick. She leaned into his hand enjoying his touch, and when he began to carefully pet the soft fur on her head and face, her tail started to thump against the ground.

He chuckled lightly, "What do you like that?" he said in a low voice. Anra licked his hand in response before resting her head on his outstretched legs and going to sleep.

As she drifted off she realized how much she cared about everyone in the Fellowship. She would miss them all very dearly when their mission was complete, 'Especially Aragorn,' she thought. They had become like a second pack to her in the short amount time they had been together so far, well all of them but maybe Boromir, he was still a jerk. Though she missed her real pack, she was already feeling sad about the day when they all had to leave each other and go back to their old lives. She had no idea what she'd do if she lost one of them.

The next day was very much the same, just a whole lot of walking. Original when they had first entered the mine, she had been happy about the heat, after all of the snow on the mountain, but now it was way too hot, and it was stuffy too. She longed for the cool shadows cast by trees in a forest, or even the cold snow from the mountains again.

It was only part way through the day when Gandalf announced that he had no memory of where they were. 'Well this is just great!' she thought in annoyance. 'We're stuck in a hot stinky mine with goblins and who knows what else for who knows how long!' Anra shook her head and told herself she needed to calm down.

She shifted and sat down a little ways away from the group, hoping to be able to get her emotions in check. Ignoring her silent wishes to be alone, Aragorn came over and sat down next to her.

"Is everything alright?" he asked her in a soft voice.

She gave him a weak smile, "Yeah everything is fine, I was just thinking about some friends of mine from my pack."

"What are they like?" his voice was curious.

Anra's expression visibly brightened when she thought of her pack mates, "Well, there's Isla, she is one of my best friends, she is one of the kindest, smartest people I know. She was always the brains from our group, the one who'd plan everything. She always knew exactly what to say to get us out of trouble, and even when we were just pups-in-training she was one of the best hunters in the entire pack." Her voice trailed off as she thought of her best friend, she wondered what she'd say about her feelings for the currently man sitting next to her. 'No, bad Anra! You do NOT have feelings for a human,' she scolded herself, though her reprimanding voice didn't even sound entirely convinced.

Oblivious to her internal battle that happened to be about him, Aragorn continued, "Who's the other one?"

"The other what?" she asked playing dumb; she didn't really want to talk about Eron to Aragorn.

He gave her a look as if to say, 'You're avoiding the subject.'

"Oh, you mean my other friend?" she said, scratching the back of her head.

"Yeah," he said raising an eyebrow.

She sighed, "His name is Eron."

Aragorn took note of how sad her voice and face looked when she said this, but he also noticed the angry undertone. "What happened?"

"Let's just say when I left we weren't on the best of terms."

"Did you to have a fight?" he asked.

"That's a pretty safe assumption to make."

"What was it about?"

Anra sighed and ran her hand through her hair, "He didn't want me to go to the meeting, he didn't even come with Isla to see me off when I left."

"Do you know why he didn't want you to go?"

She shrugged, "I don't know, I mean we've been best friends for as long as I can remember, I guess—I guess he didn't want me to get hurt and he'd miss me."

Aragorn reached over and gave her hand a quick squeeze, and said, "Hey don't they say absence makes the heart grow fonder?"

She stared out him for several long moments before they both started cracking up, "I cannot believe you just said that." She had a large grin on her face; now she was glad he had come over to sit by her. But at the same time that she was laughing, her mind was racing, had it just been her imagination, or had that actually be jealousy she had heard lacing his tone when he had said that? 'No,' she quickly dismissed, 'why would he be jealous of you and Eron, first of all he doesn't have feelings for you, and second of all he has Arwen, who'd he have to be crazy to leave for you.'

Now with her mind turning these thoughts she decided to go digging for some information about the couple. "Is that what you were saying to Arwen before we left?" her voice teasing.

She noticed he immediately stiffened at the mention of the elf princess. "Umm, not exactly," his voice was stiff and uncomfortable; clearly he did not want to go further in-depth with this conversation topic.

But then again, none of her wishes were ever granted, why should his be? She tried to make her voice sound as concerned and friend-like as possible, "What do you mean by that?"

He shifted uncomfortable, "We both decided that it would be better if she left and went on to the Grey Haven."

"Oh," she said awkwardly, what are you suppose about something like that?

Lucky for them that was the time that Gandalf figured out where to go from where they were, when Pippin asked how he knew he told him that the air smelled fresher. 'Well, if I had known that was all he needed to know then I could have told him that hours ago.'

As they began to walk again her mind drifted back to the information that Aragorn had released to her about him and Arwen. Though she couldn't help but be happy that they were done, she didn't want to just be his rebound from the elf maiden. Not that she actually had feelings for him of course; this was just all…hypothetical, of course. Though, in all seriousness, she could not be his rebound, she could not take being constantly compared to Arwen, which would not be fair in any shape or form. The she-elf was perfect in just about every way possible, she was beautiful beyond doubt, incredibly kind and sweet, Anra couldn't even imagine her getting angry, and she was also very neat and proper, a proper lady, something that Anra couldn't ever fathom being, it had to be soo boring being so clean and polite all the time.

Anra's mind then wandered back to that emotion she had heard in voice that may or may not have been jealousy, it seemed too unlikely for her taste. As she had thought before, he had no feelings for her, besides what would he be jealous of? There was nothing going on between her and Eron, just the thought of it was weird to her, the two of them had been friends for so long that he was practically a brother to her. Though then she thought of something Isla had said to her when she had been helping her get ready the day before she left. She had said something about how the only reason Eron was so upset was because he loved her and didn't want her to be swept away by the outside world and forget about him. At the time she had assumed that Isla meant love as in a way that friends loved each other, but now she began to wonder if she had meant it in a different way. She thought back to the advice she had given Arwen about what Aragorn would have said with his both his voice and eyes, she wondered what Eron's eyes would have held if she has looked into them before she left. Surly nothing more than concern for a dear friend, that was all. That had to be all.

And about the other part of Isla's words, Anra had just told her they were being paranoid and that she'd never be able to leave them behind, they were best friends. But isn't that exactly what she was doing now? She had volunteered for this Fellowship without a single thought of her friends and now she had a new group of friends, one of which she knew she had feelings for no matter how much she denied it.

She shook her head to clear it of these thought, and looked around to see where they were at. Anra opened her mouth gaping at the beautiful abandoned dwarf city she was seeing, the pillars were huge! She wasn't listening to what the others were saying about the area they were in, she only started paying attention to them when Gimli gave a cry and ran off in the direction of a cavern of sorts that was off to the side.

The rest of the Fellowship followed the sobbing dwarf into the room; in the center of it was a tomb that held his cousin. She felt bad for the poor dwarf that had been clearly excited about getting to see his cousin when they had got there only to find out that he and the rest of this company had died. 'Or been slain' she corrected herself as Gandalf read out of a big book about how the dwarves had been cornered in the very same room that they were in, and died.

She glanced around nervously when Gandalf got to the last part of his reading; she jumped out of her skin when Pippin knocked a skeleton and bucket down a well in the back of the room. The guilty hobbit flinched every time the bucket hit something as it fell down deep into the mine, which by the way, was many times.

Gandalf snatched his staff and hat back from him and snapped angrily, "Fool of a Took! Throw yourself in next time and rid us of your stupidity!"

Now Anra could understand why Gandalf was so angry, but she felt like he was taking it a little far saying that, the hobbit already looked extremely guilty and upset. She was walking over to try to comfort Pippin, when the drums started up, the drums that the dwarf book had been talking about.

Fear clenched in her stomach, she was glad that none of her companions were able to smell it. Boromir ran over to the old rotten doors to close then, but in the process was nearly hit by an arrow. He leaned against the closed doors for a second and said, "They have a cave troll."

Aragorn joined him and the two men started to bar the door with whatever they could find lying around. Gandalf was gathering the four hobbits behind him whispering to them words of encouragement, while Legolas strung his bow and was soon joined by Aragorn doing the same. Boromir drew his sword and watched the door intently, and Gimli stood on top of his cousin's grave and challenged, "Let them come! There is still one dwarf in Moria that draws breath!"

Anra shifted and stood next to Gandalf in defense of the little hobbits when Legolas let his first arrow fly into the face of a goblin that was breaking through the rotten door. It gave a scream and fell back, but its spot was taking up by two more, and soon they had demolished the door and were pouring into the room.

Everyone was quickly engaged in their own battles and Anra was no exception. Once the monsters had gotten with in pouncing range she had attacked, careful to dodge the blades they held when she tackled them. The air in the room stunk of fear, blood and sweat and soon that was all the she-wolf could taste too.

'Uggh, goblin tastes horrible,' she thought with a shudder as she sank her teeth into one's throat, quickly killing it. She spun around and leapt on another one without a second between. Anra had been slowly making her way across the room not even noticing it until she looked up and saw Boromir fighting a particularly large goblin. He was so intent on the one he was fighting that he did not notice that another one was sneaking up behind him with its blade drawn, about to give him a killing blow.

Anra gave a vicious snarl and dove onto the goblin that was behind him, Boromir turned around just time to see this. She dispatched it with a sharp bite to its throat that tore out anything and everything important. The Gondorian gave her a brief nodded of thanks before he returned to the fighting.

The steady stream of goblins seemed to have stopped coming into the room, but before she could breathe a sigh of relief two goblins came in holding onto the chain of a giant cave troll. Everyone just seemed to stop and stare at it for several moments before the battle continued. Now the troll's grunts and snarls were added to the loud noise of battle, she could hear the hobbits calling out and goading the creature, though she couldn't look up from the goblins she was fighting to see what was going on with the new addition to the battle.

The troll's club smashed Gimli's cousin's tomb with a bang, a few moments after that she risked a quick glance up to make sure that the dwarf that had been previously standing on it was okay. He was, she saw him a couple of paces away hacking away at the enemy. But that quick glance revealed something else as well; it showed Aragorn being hit by the troll's club and being flung across the room into a wall where he proceeded to lay limp unmoving.

Horror filled the she-wolf when she did not see him rise again. She killed the goblin she was fighting without a second thought, and then started to shove her way across the busy room towards where the ranger laid. Anra was scarcely paying any attention to her surroundings as she made her way over, this cost her dearly, she barely felt anything when a goblin stabbed it blade into her side. Her only reaction was to turn and swiftly tear its throat out before she continued on her way to him.

When she finally got to his side she gave him a quick sniff to make sure he was alive, which he thankfully was. She gave his face a hasty lick of relief before she placed herself in front of his unconscious body to defend him.

Anra had been closing her jaws on yet another goblin when she heard a gasp, her head snapped up to find the source. It was Frodo; the troll had impaled him with a huge spear in his stomach. Merry and Pippin gave fearsome war cries and leapt onto the troll's shoulders where they started to stab at his neck and head. Anra jumped up and clamped her teeth down on one of the troll's wrists angrily, and refused to let go when he started to swing her around trying to dislodge her.

The troll let out a moan and began to sway back and forth; she saw the two hobbit cousins jump off of the troll from the corner of her eye. 'Oh no,' she thought, 'he's going to fall and I can't tell where and when I should drop.' Panic once more filled the she-wolf as she tried desperately to see the ground from where she hung, but she could not.

Anra squeezed her eyes shut and let go, she felt momentarily weightless as she dropped, but then she landed. She had not chosen a good time or place to land. Had she had landed on solid ground she may have been okay, it might have stung a little, but over all she would have been fine. But she did not land on solid ground, nope; she landed in the rubble of Gimli's cousin's tomb.

Her paws slipped in between pieces of the broken rock painfully, aggravating her injured side even more. Her head snapped down and smacked into a larger piece of the tomb, stunning her. After lying there for several moments Anra carefully started to pick her way out of the debris, this proved to be a rather difficult task because her injured side was making it hard for her to move her back left leg and her vision kept blurring in and out of focus from hitting her head.

By the time she made it over to the rest of the company they were getting ready to keep moving, not wanting for anymore of the goblins to catch up to them. Anra's fall had gone unnoticed for the rest of the Fellowship had been crowded around the ring bearer.

The young Nightstalker was so out of it that she didn't even wonder why Frodo was okay even though he had been stabbed by such a large spear.

They all started running and at first Anra was having trouble keeping up, but then her adrenaline kicked in again and she could no longer feel her injuries. They continued running until they reached a great hall where they were surrounded by hundreds of goblins. The goblins formed a tight circle around them as if waiting for some sign before they attacked.

That said sign never came, because then a harsh orange light filled the other end of the hall and all of the goblins scattered fearfully, this was not very encouraging for the Fellowship.

Gandalf told them it was Balrog, and that it was an enemy beyond any of them. So they continued running, at one point they came to a gap in some stairs that they all had to jump, but they all thankfully made it. Finally the last bridge came into view; they all ran across it, dodging arrows that the goblins were firing at them from afar. All of them crossed it safely except Gandalf; he stopped half way and then turned to face the giant fire demon.

It appeared that he was confronting it, but she could not hear what he was saying. All Anra could hear was the blood rushing in her ears, her adrenaline was wearing off and she was quickly becoming woozy from blood loss.

She stumbled a bit, and was leaning against the wall for support, when she saw Gandalf fall. Everything seemed to stop for a moment when he caught himself on the ledge and it looked like he might be able to get back up, but then his grip slipped and he fell. Anra tipped her head back and let out a loud mournful howl, a lament for the fallen wizard.

Then Aragorn was pushing her out of the mine into daylight, when his hand brushed against her injury she snarled at him, but he barely noticed, he was still stunned from seeing their friend fall.

Once she was outside she squinted her eyes against the bright sun that they had been without for the past days that they had spent in the mine. She stumbled along until she felt grass under her paws, then she flopped down heavily on her uninjured side, feeling weak from either grief or blood loss she could not tell. All she could tell was that she did not believe she would be able to get back up.

Tears streamed down almost everyone's faces when Aragorn instructed Legolas, "Legolas, get them up," gesturing towards the hobbits, then pulling Sam to his feet saying, "On your feet Sam."

"Give them a moment for pity's sake," Boromir cried out, not even bothering to hide his tears.

"By nightfall these hills will be swarming with orcs. We must make for Lothlorien. The orcs and fell beasts do not dare venture there. We can rest and mourn once safe," he replied firmly. As Legolas collected Merry and Pippin, Aragorn looked around for Frodo. When he saw him he called out, "Frodo?!" the hobbit had started to wander away from the group. "Wait a moment Frodo. We move together."

Once the ring bearer had made his way back over to their group Aragorn looked around at all of them and asked, "Where is Anra?" The others looked around anxiously not sure where the she-wolf had gone. "Anra!" Aragorn called out, the worry clear in his voice. The others followed his example and started to spread out calling her name.

Anra could vaguely hear her friends calling her name, but could not summon the strength to answer; she had lost too much blood. Aragorn was the one that found her lying in the grass, her breath coming out in ragged pants.

"Someone bring me the medical pack!" he called out desperately to the others. "Hey girl," he said softly to her, "I'm going to need you to hang in there for me." He could tell that she had lost a lot of blood, but it was hard to tell how much exactly because she was covered in both her own and goblins' blood. The Dunedain grabbed his water skin and carefully poured some of its contents onto her side to wash away some of the blood so he could tell exactly where the wound was.

He whistled softly through his teeth once he could clearly see it, it looked pretty bad; it appeared that she had been stabbed by one of the goblin's blades. It was still bleeding heavily, so as soon as someone gave him the medical supplies he pressed some cloth to it trying to stop the bleeding.

Holding his hands on her like this he could feel her breathing getting weaker and weaker, "Come on, come on! We're not going to loss you too!" He could hear the panic in his voice, but he did nothing to hide it. Then her sides started heaving and her eyes started to flutter, "Hey, hey calm down," the ranger said softly, hoping she was not about to have a seizure or something. Then Anra shifted.

Once the woman's breathing seemed to calm down again Aragorn quickly wrapped her wound, when she was in this form it was right above her left hip. Then he lifted her up in his arms cradling her carefully against his chest, conscious of her wound. He instructed the rest of the Fellowship to start moving, Anra needed more medical attention than he could offer at the moment, he just hoped they'd get to it fast enough.


	9. Waking Up and Comforting

Anra drifted in and out of consciousness for the next few days, not much making sense to her. First, she felt strong yet gentle arms carrying her and everything smelled of Aragorn, she could feel a throbbing pain in her head and side, but nestled against his chest she felt safe. The next time she was lying on a bedroll in cool grass surrounded by sleeping hobbits while hearing what sounded like Aragorn arguing with someone about being allowed to go somewhere, and everything that time smelled like elves. Then she was being carried again, it smelled and felt like Aragorn, but she could not be for sure because all of her senses were dulled from what seemed to be having something pulled over her head. The last time this happened she felt like she was lying on a soft bed and her wounds felt a lot better. She heard a strange woman's voice drifting in her mind telling her she was safe and it was time to wake up. Anra didn't like the voice that much, though it was nice, it was airy and rather creepy with an extremely foreign feel to it.

When she finally opened her eyes she saw that she was indeed on a soft white bed underneath a fluffy white blanket. She was also naked, this was a little worrisome to her, but when she felt the wound on her side she felt it was almost healed and the bump on her head was receding she calmed a bit. She sat up and looked around the room she was in, it was an understatement to say she was happy when she saw a tub full of warm water waiting for her in the corner.

Once she had bathed she looked around for her clothes, she could founded them clean and mended, along with her knives shinning and sharpened. She dressed and braided her hair back while eating a plate of fruit she had found by her bed. She didn't believe she had ever been that hungry before in her life.

After inspecting her image in a mirror she walked over to the door set on finding the rest of her friends. She felt a lot better now that she was clean and full with her wounds almost healed, but everything smelled like elves and she had no idea where she was headed. It appeared that they were in a forest of some sorts, but there was no sign of any animals or undergrowth anywhere, only one tall silver tree after another. Soon she was hopelessly lost; she didn't even know how to get back to the room she had just come from.

'What is it with elves and making everything in their homes look the same?' she thought back to when she had been getting lost in Rivendell, it seemed like years ago.

Anra sighed, she felt like she had been walking for hours, though it had probably only been thirty minutes, but her legs were weak from not being used for so long. At last she heard what sounded like Merry and Pippin talking, she breathed a sigh of relief and followed the sound of their voices to their sources.

The she-wolf stopped walking for a bit and just stood there watching the rest of the Fellowship without their knowing. They all looked healthy enough, but their faces were sad and worried. Then Pippin turned around from where he was standing next to Gimli and saw her.

"Anra!" he cried in excitement, then he ran up to her and gave her tight hug that she happily returned.

Upon hearing the hobbit's exclamation the others turned around and saw her, smiles of relief broke out on everyone's faces, including Boromir. "It's good to see you awake again Lass," Gimli said breaking the silence, with a huge grin. "And clean for once too!" humor was clear in his voice.

Anra opened her mouth with a witty remark at the ready when she was literally knocked off her feet by being hit by three more small bodies at once. "Uuff," she groaned under the weight of the four hobbits, while she could easily carry them in her wolf form, when she was in her human form and not exactly at her strongest either, it was a whole other story.

She could hear her other companions laughing at her struggles, until one of them said in a gentle tone, "Alright gentlemen, let her up, we don't want to hurt her again." Anra was surprised to hear it was Boromir speaking and not Aragorn whom she thought it would have been.

"Sorry," Merry said bashfully, "it's just the elves would not allow us to see you when you were hurt."

Anra narrowed her eyes suspiciously upon hearing this, her inbreed distrust of elves kicking in, "They didn't?"

As if able to sense her shift in mood Aragorn quickly stepped in saying, "I'm sure they just didn't want to hinder your healing process by allowing you to be jumped all over." He gave the hobbits a stern look at the last part. Now they all ducked their head bashfully at his light yet serious chastise. Anra had a feeling she was looking at the Fellowship's new leader.

Upon thinking this she felt a surge of grief for the tenth member of their company who didn't make it out of the mines. She wondered if he had been able to defeat the Balrog before—before—, she couldn't complete the thought. Anra felt tears pricking at her eyes as she thought of the old wizard whom she had thought of as a friend, she was finding it extremely hard to accept the fact that he was not coming back.

She blinked hastily, trying to stop the tears from escaping, but when that didn't work she swiftly swiped them away with an annoyed hand. She didn't want to cry in front of them, even if they were her friends; she didn't want them to think her weak. Because that's what tears are, aren't they, weakness? She mumbled an incomprehensible excuse then she quickly fled off in a random direction, wanting to be anywhere but there at the moment.

Anra eventually stumbled to a stop in front of a beautiful silver pond; she slid down to the ground and leaned against a wide tree. She stuffed the sleeve of her tunic in her mouth in an attempt to stifle her noisy sobs. She was unaware of another's presence until he sat down next to her silently and wrapped her in his arms. She leaned into Aragorn's embrace, setting her head down on his chest like she had before they had gone up the mountain.

Anra was aware of him stroking her hair and whispering soothing things to her in elvish. She knew she must look a mess; her eyes would be bloodshot with a red nose and a blotchy face, so she hastily wiped her eyes once more and tried to stop sobbing.

But Aragorn pulled her had away from her face and placed his finger gently under her chin forcing her to look at him. "You know it is okay for you to cry? We will not judge you for doing so, we all did so," his voice was soft and understanding. He continued to hold her chin until her eyes reluctantly met his. It was strange, instead of feeling angry and challenged by his gaze like she normally would from looking into someone's eyes, (which is normal for any wolf), she relax and felt safe.

After several more moments she ducked her head, but not in submission, she just simply felt no need to hold his gaze any longer. Aragorn breathed softly then tightened his arms around Anra and pulled her the rest of the way into his lap, resting his chin on the top of her head.

The two of them stayed like that for a while longer, both lost in thought about their fallen friend, until Anra eventually drifted off to the world sleep. Sensing that his companion had fallen asleep Aragorn stood up lifting her with him, careful not to jostle her awake. He walked back to where the Fellowship was staying and set her down on her bedroll, caringly tucking her in and giving her a soft kiss on her forehead before heading to his own bedroll for the night.

HGCMHGCMHGCMHGCMHGCMHGCMHGCMHGCMHGCMHGCMHGCMHGCMHG 

Not much happened for the next couple days, everyone in the Fellowship was happy for the brief reprieve they were getting from their journey. Anra and Aragorn did not really talk about what had passed between the two of them beside the pond, nor did she really talk to Boromir at all, he had been acting a little strangely towards her since she had woken up, he had not insulted her once. Truth be told, it was freaking her out a little so she had resorted to avoiding him. Of Legolas and Gimli, she hadn't seen that much of them either; they always seemed to be wondering the great forests of Lothlorien together. She found it rather comical that the two of them had become such close friends over the past couple days, but it also made her happy.

Anra had spent the majority of her time with the four hobbits, whether raiding the kitchens or telling stories to each other, she was glad for their company. They enjoyed hearing all the old Nightstalker tales she had to tell and she like hearing about Frodo's uncle, Bilbo's adventures. She also helped the hobbits practice with their sword fighting, while she wasn't the best with a sword, she was fast and skilled with her daggers.

The fellowship was rarely together as a whole, save for when they slept and ate supper, when they were all together it was too easy to sense the missing presence of Gandalf. The whole subject of the great wizard seemed to be a taboo of some sort; nobody ever spoke of him as if there was some unsaid agreement not to. Part of Anra wanted to scream at the rest of the company for not ever speaking of him, but she knew if she did not only would she be a hypocrite but she would be pointlessly reopening wounds that at the moment were still rather raw.

She sighed and looked around at her companions; they were at one of those sad quite suppers she had been speaking of, all were there but Aragorn at the moment. Her eyes drifted over to Frodo, she had been watching him worriedly all day. The previous night she had awoken in the middle of night and noticed the dark haired hobbit stumbling back into their sleeping area with a fearful look on his face. She had questioned him about it in the morning when they had a moment alone, but he insisted he was fine. So, not wanting to badger the troubled hobbit anymore, she had simply resorted to keeping a watchful eye on him.

Anra was roused from her thoughts when Aragorn joined them with two announcements. One, they would be departing from the elvish territory the day after tomorrow, this brought the she-wolf great relief, she felt like they had been lingering for far too long. And two, the next night, the night before they were leaving, there was to be a celebration held in the Fellowships honor, this Anra dreaded.

It appeared that she was not the only one that was not happy about this, Boromir also protested. Aragorn just gave the two of them a stern look and told them that their attendance was required; it would be extremely rude to not accept the Lord and Lady's invitation after they had shown them so much hospitality.

Though Anra knew he was right it didn't stop her from being bitter about it. A celebration during times like these?! What were these crazy elves thinking? 'Maybe they want to just lighten everyone's spirits?' her reasonable voice suggested sounding a lot like Isla, but she made a sour face that this thought.

She knew that her main objection to these festivities stemmed from her distress and embarrassment. 'Or maybe it would be better put as my distress came from my embarrassment,' she supposed. Nightstalkers almost never had these sorts of celebrations, sure they'd have feast for when a new litter of pups arrived safely into the world, or if there was a wedding among pack mates, but they were rarely formal events. She didn't even know how to properly dance! Sure there would be dancing at the feasts, but those were wild and silly dances that she figured no elf would be caught dead doing. And this was not to mention what she would be expected to wear and what she would wear, because there was a difference. She knew that all the females at this party would be dressed in beautiful gowns with their hair done up in magnificent styles, but she would not be one of them. She had no fancy ball gown with her; in fact she didn't have any sort of dress with her period. And why would she? Anra certainly had not been thinking about looking pretty when she packed for this quest, no her mind had been much more preoccupied by deciding what weapons to take.

'Valar,' she moaned silently to herself, 'this is going to be so embarrassing!'


	10. Forgivness and Rejection

**A/N: Disclaimer: I do NOT own Lord of the Rings!**

**thank you for the reviews they make me wiggle and smile every time I get a new one! Please go ahead and leave one whether just about how you felt about the chapter or with suggests or constructive criticism all are welcomed! :D**

The next morning after breakfast she was walking around alone with no specific destination in mind, she was still trying to think of a good excuse to miss the celebration that night. She had yet to come up with a strong enough one, and this point she was thinking about throwing in her pride and just claiming that she was having feminine problems and would be unable to dance. Males had a tendency to become extremely uncomfortable when faced with this particular problem and asked few questions. She knew it could work because she had used it once against her father to get out of training for the day, she remembered how he had started mumbling and blubbering with his face turning bright red before he had fled the room as if all of Mordor was on his tail. Later Patia had heard what excuse Anra had used to get out of training and given her a long lecture about it, but the young she-wolf had thought it was worth it, never before had she seen her father, the big almighty, tough alpha become so uncomfortable and lost for words so quickly.

Anra was remembering this moment with a fond smile on her face when three elf women approached her. "Can I help you?" Anra asked uncertainly.

"Are you lady Anra?" the one in front inquired.

"Umm, yes?"

"Good," replied the same elf curtly, "you are to come with us."

"Why?" Had she done something wrong? Was she in trouble? Anra swallowed nervously.

"Because," piped up one of the elves in back with a high pitched silly voice, "we must help you get ready for the celebration this evening!"

"Umm, I hate to break it to you guys, but I'm already ready."

The three elves regarded her clothes and hair with a look akin to horror, "No, we really do insisted," pestered the other young she-elf in back.

Anra felt her cheeks flare up in anger and embarrassment, "Well I'm sorry if—," she started, but was cut off by the older elf in front who had originally addressed her.

"We meant no offence m'Lady, just simply that the Lady Galadriel herself asked us to assist you, she even gave us the gown for you to wear." The older elf sensed the Nightstalker's hesitation, so she continued in a softer voice, "Think of it as a small thank you from the elves for participating in this dangerous quest."

Anra was still temped to say no, even if she did not have to worry about her clothing she still didn't wish to attend the event. Then she thought of Aragorn's warning about turning down the wishes of the Lady. So she took a deep breath then agreed.

The three elf women then immediately pull her off to a privet room, much like the one she had woken up in after her injuries were healed. Once there they had her get into a hot bath and they proceeded to scrub her raw. They quickly dried her off and forced her into a tight corset followed by a light green slip then the dress. They twisted and yanked at her hair until it was in the formation they wanted it and her eyes were watering. They gave her a pair of slippers to wear that matched her dress, and lastly they cleaned and filed her nails till they all had perfect white half-moons. The whole process took a surprisingly long time and she wasn't done until the sun had started to set and it was time for the ball.

Anra was now standing just outside the light from the celebrations watching the rest of the Fellowship nervously, uncertain to how they'd react to her gown; it was a far cry from what they had ever seen her in. They all also looked very handsome, the older males in fancy robes and the hobbits in adorable little vests, she wondered if their clothes had all been borrowed too.

She took a deep breath and walked up to them, standing on the end next to Pippin. The others turned to look at her, Aragorn with his mouth open as if to reprimand her for running late, but no sound came out. She felt herself turning red under the stares of her eight male companions, she shuffled her feet awkwardly.

Then Pippin, bless him, broke the incredibly horrible silence, "Excuse me fair-maiden, but have you seen our friend Anra? She looks a great deal like you except she's normally covered in dirt, hates dresses, and has crazy hair."

She gave a playful growl and swatted him on the back of the head while the others laughed good-naturedly.

Then Lord Celeborn started his welcoming speech, "Welcome my dear friends, we are gathered here tonight to celebrate and honor the ones here that are risking their lives today, to make ours better tomorrow. We are also here to remember their companion who did not make it this far, but instead gave up his life for the cause." Everyone was silent for several moments with their heads bowed in remembrance of Gandalf. "In tradition, the celebration shall be started by two of our guests of honor starting the dances."

At first these words had no significant meaning to Anra, but then she realized what he was implying. Obviously since she was the only female member of the Fellowship that meant she had to be one of the ones leading it, she glanced at the rest of her companions to see who was stepping forward, it was Aragorn.

He stepped up to her and bowed formally, taking this as a queue she curtsied back to him feeling all eyes on the two of them. He then took her arm and slowly led her out to the dance floor; it took all her will power not to bolt right then.

"Aragorn," she hissed softly to him.

"Yes?" he replied in a low voice.

"I—I don't know how to dance!" she squealed in a quit, frightened voice.

She had to give him credit for keeping his cool as he led her to the center of the room, "Just follow my lead," he said softly enough that none of the elves around them would be able to hear. "Give me your one hand, and put your other one on my shoulder." She did as she was told. She had to hold back a yelp of surprise when his hand settled on her hip and pulled her closer to him so that they were chest to chest. Though she knew he must have felt her stiffen because he gave her a small self-satisfied smirk, thinking her reaction to him amusing. She fought the urge to kick him in his shin.

The music started up and Aragorn began to lead her around the room using small graceful steps that she mimicked along with several dips and spins on the way. Other dancers joined then out on the floor, and she became use to the dances patterns, starting to relax in his arms. Though she did notice that her heartbeat refused to slow, she chalked it up to excitement and having nothing at all to do with who she was dancing with.

Speaking of whom, he looked down at her and gave her a tender smile saying, "You're doing great, and Pippin was right, you look beautiful." She felt her cheeks flush once more and he chuckled slightly at this.

'She does look beautiful,' Aragorn thought. She was wearing a long dark green gown with gold thread embroidery that made her vivid green eyes stand out and her hair look redder. Her hair was pulled up into an elegant twisted bun on the top of her head held together by sparkling pins, making her neck look long and grace full, and her cheek bones stand strongly. The dark color of her dress made her skin look pale, but not in a sickly way at all, but a lovely way that made her eyes look deep and mysterious.

Anra laid her head against his chest as they swept across the floor, feeling oddly at peace. 'I suppose dancing like this isn't too bad,' she thought, 'though our dances are more fun.' Her mind wandered momentarily to her packs wild celebration dances until she was brought back to the present by Aragorn giving her hip a light squeeze, signaling that the song was coming to an end.

Once the music ended the two of them broke apart, Aragorn took her hand brushing his lips against the back of her hand in the ghost of a kiss, his eyes never leaving hers. Anra ducked her head shyly, and then peeked up at him through her lashes tentatively. He gave her an affectionate smile and led her off the dance floor.

Now that she was off the dance floor Anra took the opportunity to look around the party area. The hobbits were crowded around a banquet table getting something to eat, Gimli was getting some wine, since they didn't have any mead or ale, and Legolas seemed to be quite popular with the elf maidens, dancing with one after another after another. She chuckled quietly to herself thinking, 'He is an elf prince, and I suppose he is also handsome, though not my type, too much hair_._'

She walked over to the hobbits, getting herself something to munch on. Frodo turned and looked at her with bright eyes and said, "I did not know you could dance!"

She gave a rather unlady like snort and replied, "Neither did I, though I fear that Aragorn's toes most certainly could tell!"

The hobbits laughed, "Say, Pippin would you like to dance?" she asked with a twinkle in her eyes. Anra was happy to see the hobbits smiling and laughing so freely, after what happened in the mines it had seemed like they may never be so light-spirited again.

"Sure!" the others laughed as she led him out onto the dance floor. The young hobbit stood on her feet and put his hands on her sides while she placed hers on his shoulders. The two of them twirled around and around the room, laughing their heads off at their silly dance.

Anra and Pippin had to slow down for a bit, and they were more of stumbling around the room than dancing because they were both so dizzy from spinning so much, when someone came over and tapped on Pippin's shoulder.

"Mind if I cut in for a bit?" Pippin nodded then wobbled off in the general direction of the other laughing hobbits, still stumbling around as if he were drunk.

They chuckled a little at the young hobbit's antics, then the man offered Anra his hand so they could begin to dance, it was Boromir. She took his outstretched hand and they two of them began to dance.

They danced the same style that she had with Aragorn earlier, but whereas Aragorn had held her tight to his chest, Boromir kept her at a slight distance so that they weren't really touching. Anra was glad for the small distance between them, but she was confused with why he was dancing with her at all. Sure since they had gotten to the elven forest he had been nicer to her, but she didn't think he really actually liked her still.

So since she could not think of why he was doing it she just asked him instead. "Boromir, why are you dancing with me? I didn't think you even liked me."

The Gondorian hesitated for a moment, though his steps did not falter, "I didn't," he started. "But then you saved my life when we were fighting in the mines even though I had never been anything but nasty and unfair towards you. It made me realize that I had judged you before I had even gotten to know you, that I had judged your kind before I even understood them, and for that I am truly sorry. I was hoping that you could somehow find a way in your heart to forgive me even though I don't deserve it and we can give our friendship a second chance."

Anra gaped at the steward's son; out of all the things she'd expected him to say that was not one of them. She pretended to have to think about it for a moment, taking her hand off her shoulder and tapping her chin. But she couldn't make him wait any longer, his eyes looked so sad and regretful, she threw her arms around him and pulled him into a hug that surprised them both. "Of course I forgive you!"

The two of them quickly pulled out of the hug and looked away for each other awkwardly, Boromir cleared his throat and stammered, "Umm, that's good, err I mean thank you," turning a little pink.

Anra had to bite back a smile at the red haired man's awkwardness. She took pity on him and, "Shall we continue?" she prompted holding out her hands so they could finish their dance together. He took them looking rather relieved and they started to dance again.

The Nightstalker was happy that Boromir wanted become friends, she had a feeling that they would get along every well once if they did put aside their differences, they had a lot in common.

When the song that they were dancing to came to a close and they walked over to where most of the Fellowship was lingering, Anra unconsciously scanned the room looking to see where Aragorn was. She felt a slight pinprick of worry when she did not find him among the crowds or on the dance floor, but then she felt somebody tap her on the shoulder while his comforting scent enveloped her.

She spun around to face him, her eyes widening when she realize how close he was standing to her. She tried to swallow but her mouth was too dry, he extended his hand to her and nodded his chin in the direction of the dance floor. Her feet were killing her but she placed her hand in his and allowed him to lead her back out.

This dance was different from the other ones she had done so far that night, Aragorn placed both his hands around her waist and after glancing around to see what everyone else was doing, Anra clasped her hands behind his neck. This song had a slower rhythm with a more intimate feel to it. Aragorn held her close to his body, probably closer than two people who were just friends would, but she certainly was not complaining about it.

The she-wolf sighed contently and laid her head against his chest enjoying the steady beat of his heart, when he asked, "So what were you and Boromir looking so friendly about?"

"Jealous?" she teased playfully. "He was actually apologizing for being a jerk to me all this time and was wondering if I'd give him a chance at being friends."

"And I assume from the hug that you said yes?"

"Well then you'd be assuming correctly," Anra murmured, not raising her head from its resting place.

"Hmm, well that was very kind of you," he hummed softly.

"What can I say, I'm a nice person," she joked.

The song drew to a close, but instead of releasing the Nightstalker and heading back over to the rest of the Fellowship Aragorn gripped Anra's hand gently and lead her the other way into the forest out of the celebration area. She gazed around the forest, 'It really is beautiful here,' she thought. 'But it's too calm, too perfect.' Her thoughts turn to the forest she called home, full of undergrowth and each tree huge and nothing like the next one. While in this elven forest every tree was the exact same, all of them tall, slim and silver.

Aragorn snapped her out of her musing when he stopped walking and stepped in front of her. She blinked a couple of time then tipped her head back so she could look him in the eye, he still had not released her hand. His other hand gentle caressed her face while her green eyes slowly met his gentle grey ones.

Alarm bells started sound in her head as his hand cupped her face; his rough, callused hand was so gentle and warm, she felt like she could stay like that forever. But the alarm bells just would not shut up, 'Is this what you really want?' she thought. 'Yes!' she practically snarled at herself, but fear filled her at the thought of becoming romantically involved with him or really anyone outside of her pack. Though the cases were far and in between, every once in a while a Nightstalker would fall in love with and mate with someone that was not from their pack, Anra could only remember this happening once in her life time.

Truthfully Anra couldn't even remember how the wolf had met the girl but he had apparently continuously snuck out of their territory to the village where she lived to visit her but when the rest of the pack had found out it had not been pretty. He had been shunned and harassed about it by other wolves, even attacked once. It became so bad that he had ended up leaving the pack forever to go live with the girl because he could not take it anymore. Most of the wolves had seen it as a huge betrayal and claimed that he had abandoned the pack. Anra had been about eight years old at the time and it had scared her, the thought of the pack turning against her like that was terrifying.

She must have made a strange face at these thoughts because Aragorn asked her if she was okay. "Hmm? What, yeah I'm fine," she quickly answered.

He gave her a concerned look and said, "You know I would never do anything to hurt you right?"

"Yeah," she murmured quietly, and she knew it was the truth, he would never intentionally hurt her, but he did not know that how much trouble and pain that their relationship could inflict. He nodded and started to lean down towards her.

She turned her face and pulled away from him "I'm sorry, I can't," she mumbled. She turned and ran off into the surrounding forest not looking back to see his hurt face.

She swallowed as she stumbled through the dark not paying attention to where she was headed, just wanting to get away from everything so she could think. It's not that she didn't have feelings for him, it was quite the opposite actually; she did have feelings for him strong ones. And that was what was scaring her so bad, never before had she felt feelings this strong.

Anra looked around where she had ended up, it was a lovely garden. But there was something strange about it, there seemed to be whispers coming from the stone basin that stood in the center. She wondered if she was in some off limits area or something, there was some sort of magic about the place that she just could not place her finger on, it quieted her mind.

She glanced around the beautiful garden before she approached the stone basin in the center, following its whispers. Stepping up onto the slightly raised platform it was set up on Anra swallowed nervously and gazed down into the dark reflective waters that filled it.

_Eron snarled at her in wolf form, his ears pressed flat to his head, eyes full of anger and hate. He crouched down then sprung at her, claws extended… Several of her pack members stared at her with looks of disgust and betrayal written clearly on their faces… Torn and bloodied bodies of wolves and people lay mixed together on an open died field. Steel grey skies extending in all different directions full of crows and ravens descending onto the bodies of the fallen, ready to feast… There was Legolas and Gimli their faces full of confusion and anger… Merry and Pippin both turning away from her, looking ashamed of her… Aragorn yelling and screaming at her, eyes full of loathing, arms waving around madly… Anra herself, sitting alone in a cold, dark room, shivering and hungry with blood running down her arms… Her standing above Aragorn watching him sleep peacefully in a bed, a small knife gripped tightly in her hand. She approached him, gently brushed some hair out of his face then she brought the dagger down plunging it into his heart…_

Anra gasped, stumbling away from the basin and collapsing onto the ground, far from caring if she got dirt on her beautiful gown. She sat on the earth tears streaming down her cheeks; she reached up and ripped the sparkling pins from her hair, letting them scatter to the ground while her curls fell heavily down her back. Sobs torn from her chest and at the moment she couldn't care less about how weak she looked.

Those images, those pictures, they couldn't be true. This couldn't be what the future held, they were lies. They had to be.

She scrambled shakily to her feet and stumbled blindly out of the garden back into the silver forest. Anra was somehow able to locate the room that she had gotten ready in and she changed back into the clothes that she had been wearing earlier that day. As she yanked on her boots she looked at the green dress lying crumpled on the floor and she thought, 'How could I have been wearing that today? How was I so happy dancing with my friends and spending time with Aragorn when my future looks like this? Oh Valar, Aragorn, why we you so angry at me, what did I do?'

She raked her fingers through her hair, took a gulp of air and staggered roughly to her feet. She didn't know what to do; she couldn't go back to the Fellowship looking like this, especially after seeing those images. The she-wolf wiped her eyes as she exited the room thinking about what she could do. She knew that she had to go back to where they were staying because they'd go out looking for her if she didn't show up and she knew she couldn't let them do that because they need their sleep since they were heading out the next day.

'Okay, so I'll go back, but not like this, I don't want them asking any questions. I suppose I could just go back in my other form, then they won't expect me to say a thing.'

She took another deep breath to calm herself and then she shifted and started heading back to where they were staying. It's not that she wanted to keep things from them, but if that was her future that she had seen then she didn't know how it was any of their business knowing anyways. Plus she was afraid of what their reactions would be if she told them what the water had shown, she had no idea why everyone had been so very upset with her or where she had been in the second to last vision. Anra flat out refused to think about the last one.

When Anra trotted into the clearing where the Fellowship was staying everyone turned and looked at her with different expressions on their faces, they were mostly relieved, as if they had been afraid they she-wolf had been lost. She was careful not to look at Aragorn.

She lifted her chin high and walked across the clearing to where the hobbits were settled together. Laying down behind them in a fashion that allowed her encircle the four of them with her body so they were all snuggled against her side taking comfort from her soft pelt.

After settling her head down on top of her front paws she risked a quick glance up at Aragorn who was sitting across the clearing from her. The ranger was staring at her, he wasn't even trying to hide the fact that he was, it was an outright stare. She quickly flicked her eyes away from his not wanting for him to see that she was watching him too. She hoped her wasn't too upset with her for running away from him, or worse, think she was a tease for leading him on then denying him once he started coming around.

The she-wolf shook her head, trying to clear it of those thoughts so that she could get the rest she would need for the following days travels. Eventually she was able to ignore the thoughts and images spinning through her head and drift off into the land of sleep.


	11. Gifts and Unrequited Feelings

**A/N: I'm sorry for the gap in updates again but between summer homework, swimming, and extreme writer's block I've had trouble with this story. its a short chapter but I figured it was better than nothing, all reviews are welcomed and encouraged, they help motivate me to write :)**

The next morning Anra was more than happy to wake up, she had been having nightmares all night, she just kept seeing those visions from the basin over and over again except in her sleep they were more extreme and upsetting, if that was even possible. She was glad they when they started walking towards the edge of the forest, she was hoping that a change of scenery would help take her mind off of them.

When they stood at the end of the elven forest by the side of a large river the elves of Lothlorien garbed them with new cloaks that had a lovely leaf shaped clasp on them. Then Lady Galadriel presented each member of the Fellowship with a gift and different words of encouragement.

When the elf queen reached Anra she handed her a beautiful silver dagger with a snarling wolf head hilt. Anra carefully took the amazing blade from her out stretched hands, but once she wrapped her hands around the hilt it became strikingly familiar and she threw it to the ground as if it had burned her.

The rest of the Fellowship stared at her in disbelief, realizing how rude that was; she quickly bent down and picked it up muttering some apologies and excuses for dropping it. All the while fiercely snarling to herself, 'It's just a dagger, it's not inherently evil, it can't make you do anything!'

The Lady of Light met her eyes and Anra heard the elf's voice in her head say, _"You have seen this blade before."_ It wasn't a question so much as it was a statement. _"You fear what taking it might entail for the future." _The voice was the same one she had heard when she had woken up in that room after her injuries had been healed.

Anra started at the Lady worried that she would be angry about Anra looking into the mirror without permission, but the elf's face remind devoid of any emotions. _"You are right to fear your future, for it is dark, but do not forsake hope because the future is not set in stone and even one decision, no matter how insignificant it may seem at the time, can change it whether for better or worse. One thing is for sure though; if this quest should fail then there is no hope for anyone." _Anra swallowed then nodded, knowing that she would not give up on this quest no matter how hard it became for her to go on. She tightened her hand around the dagger's hilt and dipped her head in thanks. The she-elf moved onto the next Fellowship member.

Anra was relieved to see that Aragorn had Sam and Frodo already in his boat when they were leaving. She climbed into a boat with Legolas and Gimli so that the hobbit cousins could ride together. The she-wolf didn't mind though, they were pretty content to leave her to her thoughts. Her two companions were talking about their gifts and she had to suppress a bout of laughter when she heard that Gimli's was elf hair. She actually thought it was kind of gross, besides what could he even possible do with three strands of hair?

She shook her head as she listened to the dwarf go on and on about how beautiful the elf lady was, looking an awful lot like a love struck rabbit while doing so. She was silently snickering to herself about this when Legolas broke into her train of thoughts asking, "Why did you drop your gift like that Anra?"

Quickly making up an answer Anra said, "It just slipped, it's not like it was on purpose," her voice was a little defensive.

"I wasn't saying it was," the wood elf replied evenly, "I was just surprised that you dropped it, that's all."

"Yeah well it was an accident," she snapped tartly. 'Great,' she thought sarcastically, 'now I'm thinking about why I don't want this dagger again! Thanks for that Legolas, thank you so freaking much!'

The images just kept playing over and over again in her head as if stuck on replay. She needed to do something to take her mind off them; they weren't going much further that day so she did the only thing she could do, the she-wolf shifted then jumped into the water. Gimli gave a cry of surprise as the boat rocked when she launched herself out of it into the river so she could swim beside the boats.

The water felt nice to Anra, cool and refreshing; not to mention the looks on her fellow Fellowship members' faces, they were hilarious. She paddled strongly alongside the elvish boats, since they were traveling with the current it really wasn't that hard, but she enjoyed the exercise nonetheless.

Not too long later Aragorn called out to the other two boats that they were stopping for the night. Anra splashed over to the shore line where the others were starting to unload the boats for the night, Gimli was complaining about something; from Aragorn's response she deducted that he must have decided their path.

Not really thinking anything of it Anra gave herself a good shake flinging water droplets all over. "Ugh, Anra!" Boromir cried in disgust as he wiped water off of his face. Tongue lolling out of her mouth in a wolfish grin she turned and looked at him. Upon seeing the look of disgust on the warrior's face she started to make a strange wheezing noise in the back of her throat.

At first the rest of the Fellowship watched her in worry, and then they realized that she was laughing. Smiles broke out on their faces dispersing the somber mood that had been there not but a few moments ago. They couldn't help it; it was a pretty funny site: Boromir looking horrified, Anra wheezing with her tongue hanging out of the side of her mouth, and Pippin in the background also dripping from the she-wolf's attempt to get dry, cackling merrily at the situation.

After a moment Boromir also smiled a little before he wandered away to start a small cooking fire. Soon everyone, including Anra who was in her human form again, was gathered around the fire that he had started eating their dinner the somber mood starting to make its reappearance.

Anra watched Frodo with a worried gaze as Sam tried to get him to eat his dinner, he was still acting strange. She wondered if he had looked into that dreadful mirror too, if that was where he had been that night that he had come back so late from with a haunted expression.

She shoved her plate away from her having suddenly lost her appetite as well, she needed to do something, she needed to move. The she-wolf scrambled to her feet, "I—I'll be back," she mumbled before shifting and streaking off into the dark surrounding forests.

"Anra!" a few of them called out after her in distress. Aragorn growled in annoyance, grabbing his sword and climbing to his feet getting ready to chase after her into the night, but Legolas held out his hand to stop him. The elf prince then said, "There's no point in going after her, even you wouldn't be able to track her in the dark when she's shifted. Besides if anyone can take care of themselves in the forest at night it's her."

Aragorn sighed but then sat back down, even though what Legolas said was true didn't mean he had to like it. "I wonder what that was about." Merry pondered aloud.

Gimli responded, "I don't know, the lass has been acting mighty strange all day."

"Maybe she's having some feminine problems," Boromir chuckled with a slight smirk upon his face.

The hobbits looked at each other in confusion, so Aragorn cut in before they could ask what feminine problems were. "Whatever it is, it is none of our business, they are her personal problems and we should respect her privacy." Though when the ranger said this he could not help but feel guilty and wonder if it was his fault she was acting strange. He felt ashamed of himself for the way he had acted after the celebration; it was now clear to him that she did not have the same feelings for him that he had for her. He shook his head trying to clear it of those thoughts and told everyone to go to sleep, he'd keep watch tonight.


End file.
